Apoopos of nothing

We see a mangled dove on the side of the road on the way home from school, probably the victim of a windshield collision. Its wing splays upward, and we can't even tell if it has a head.

"Mom? What happens to dove minds?"

"Well, they stop working when their bodies do. It's sad, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

[Long pause during which a jerk in a giant SUV, oblivious to my presence or anything but his texting, shoves me over into the turn lane early, and I cut off a cop.]

"So, Mom? What about souls? Do doves have souls?"

Now I'm chanting Pleasedon'tpullmeoverPleasedon'tpullmeover under my breath and have lost the thread of the conversation. I take the lazy thought-provoking route.

"What do you think?"

"Well, some people think everything has a soul and some people think only people do. Some people think nothing really does."

For my part, I hope I have one, because by now I'm pledging it to the traffic-patrol gods. It works. He continues on as I turn. "Um, yeah. You're right. Wow. Have you been talking about this with other people?"

"Sometimes," he says, around powdered cheese and a sizable mass of chewed up Doritos left over from lunch. "After we played Monster Mania but before I skinned my elbow -- I was a zombie mostly, and my friend was a ghost but then he was a vampire, but I think he cheated because you're not supposed to be a vampire on the equipment, but the playground teacher said to 'solve it yourselves' (here he makes sarcastic air quotes) -- after that, my friend said something about it. He said he thinks there might be like a big soul bedroom, and we all go there when we die, and he hopes that his turtle is there. But he said his other friend doesn't think any of them will be there."

"Well, people believe all kinds of different things."

"Yeah. Different things about God or Heaven and stuff."

"Yeah, that's true.

"You know what I think?" He cranes his head to talk to me in the rear view mirror. "I think that our soul isn't really like a ghost or an invisible brain or anything. I think that it's just the word we had to make up to talk about what we are altogether. Like, our thoughts and thoughts about thoughts and stuff, and everything nice and not nice that we did, and how we know that when we die that's the end of the line for us in our body but our body breaks up and becomes other stuff, like water in a lake or animal food and then animal poop, or stars and stuff -- and knowing that and how nice we are until we die is our soul. Also, I don't know, maybe some part of our knowing, like some part we don't know is there, goes to where lots of other things that were alive are. But no one knows exactly if that happens and how it goes and all that's too long to say so we say 'soul.'"

We pull up the driveway. I'm at a loss. When did we make the jump from baby talk to this? This? I figure I'd better give it my best try. I turn around in the driver's seat.

"Well, people really do believe all kinds of different things, and I think you're pretty darn smart and can figure out for yourself what to believe and how you think the world works. You're kind and you explore the world and that's what really matters. No matter what people call or don't call things they believe in -- God, or Heaven, or other names for it, or if they just believe in life and do their best -- we all do and love the same things, we just speak about it in different langua... What's wrong? Are you sad about the dove?

"No." He's grimacing. "It's just, you're talking a lot, and I really have to poop. Can you get bring my chips in?"

Don't let the sun go down on me (until I have my camera ready)

My online presence is not insubstantial. However, since I'm supposed to be a writer -- I abruptly sprang awake other night at 3 a.m. as my brain suddenly decided to contemplate the gravity of paying off the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent learning how to be a writer with the zeroes of zeroes of dollars I've made recently practicing the art -- of course I would have an easier time producing photos than essays. Add to this that I have several family members and friends who differentiate between my blog (which they call my "blahhhg" -- I have several family members and friends back east) and my "website," which is really just the Flickr site of a wannabe photog; and my online offerings can seem pretty slim at times, to say nothing of my coverage of typical Arizona topics. Several of these fine folks, most of whom don't usually visit the latter site, have expressed surprise a time or two that I have yet to really say anything about Arizona sunsets.

I reply that it's cliché, done before, and that I don't have anything particularly useful or new to say on the subject.

But then I look at my photos, and my waiting photos, and what I spend the most time watching, timing, analyzing, and capturing. If sunset photography is a cliché, than I am a walking, point-and-shooting cliché.

I blame my mom. When we first moved to Arizona, she was obsessed with sunset shots. Red clouds, orange poofy clouds, pink smeary skies, gold flares through the front window ... she captured them daily with a thin teal 110 Instamatic camera. After a while, we started making fun of her pretty mercilessly, and so she began shooting the cacti (at sunset); our new house (at sunset); my brother, sister and I playing (at sunset, and we only made it in the barest portion of the bottom corner of the frame; the rest was sky); and the raised dirt-rock-hill-thing in our front yard (guess when?); all to circumvent the basis for our mocking. (It didn't work.) Then she consolidated the shots into a sort of matrix, a collage of snapshots that she kept tacked to the wall in the master bedroom, right above the piano no one played. That made it look like one unit, rather than an ongoing obsession. (We still didn't give her a pass, of course.)

But she got to know the sky and the state and the desert. She always knew when the sun was about to dip -- just about to, but hadn't yet -- when the light would flare most vividly, how the shadows would jump and stretch, what the light would hit. Her routine intertwined with the sun's. Hell, I should have been astounded. I was sixteen before I even knew which freaking direction was west. I couldn't even find the sunset.

I've gone through bouts of hating and absolutely loving the desert since then. I've studied the science of just about every aspect of it -- geology, biology, botany, ridiculously specific entomological topics, tracking by scat (my son's favorite). I've written on astronomy, wildlife, conservation, and caves in our state and in my corner of desert; about oversized arachnid pedipalps and nipple beehive cacti (try Googling that one at work). But I've never really just backed up to get to know the place. To feel the desert wake up each day and breathe. Seriously. Somehow, I got in the habit of doing that these last few weeks and months. I know when the sun rises (which I usually just glimpse through pulled blinds) and when it sets each day. Just the conscious decision to monitor it, to follow the day's journey and see it out, has put me in step with its rhythm. Just looking at the day has put me in sync with this place in a way I never got before by looking stuff up and and looking for stuff.

My son waits for it each evening now. From our usual vantage point downstairs we can tell when the sun dips below the wall out back, which is actually just the preview to the real sunset. We either take a walk right then, or race upstairs and capture it from the window. The day is tucking in just as we begin watching. The roadrunner roosts on our neighbor's meter box, the doves wheel and circle, lizards hide in the cracks in walls and beneath rocks, spiders come out, and the sky bursts. It gasps and sighs. And it glows and blazes, and slowly it fades. But it's not dull. It's kind of like a winded afterglow effect, with swirls and wisps to play out the day's last hurrah. And it's nearly always amazing. Always, always something different.

So, yeah, that's it. Just look at these. Just a few (for real -- I have hundreds, maybe thousands more) shots from our recent evenings. I've said enough. This is our view each night. Here, for anyone who wanted to see, and even those who didn't. I'll shut up and show. I have to do something with all these shots. I have too many for the wall in the bedroom.

(Oh, and sorry, Mom.)

(Overdue) snapshots

I hate Cox.

I hear you snickering. Shut up.

Seriously, the cable company? Not on my nice list today. I had more snapshots, but instead of writing them down first and transferring them to the blog, per usual (or even making cryptic notes like "Elab. RE: butts!" which, even if I forget what they mean, are at least intriguing to my three-hours-later self), I decided to type them directly into Blogger. I also had a semi-lengthy eloquent (I swear) pitch going in Yahoo Mail. So of course when I tried to save or post the blog, and send the mail, Cox flopped.

Seriously, shut up.

The phone, Internet, everything.

It's back up, mostly, now. So here are some of the snapshots, but I swear it was better before. Grr.

Cox sucks. (Shut up.)

But either way, get a load of my son's shots. He rocks, no?

***

My husband: "Did you see it?"
Me: "I did. Thanks for the ice cream!"
My husband: "What about the note?"
Me: "Oh, I love you too."
My husband: (Smiles)
Me: "But seriously, thanks for the ice cream.

My son begged and begged to take his camera on the field trip to the local heart center. After asking his teacher and several bring-it-back-or-else lectures, I sent it with him. He was a hit. He video taped the presentations and documented the entire event, but I'm not allowed to share the majority of the footage because every single segment features things like "...and that's why the arteries constrict. DAVID WATCH THIS!!" punctuated by his friends making goober faces and flapping their arms at the camera like the guy who played Paul Pfeiffer did in the Wonder Years credits.

My son: "Mom, what does this word say?"
Me: "You read it. You know how to read."
My son: "No, really."
Me: "OK, fine. Read me the letters."
My son: "C-O-C-K ... never mind. I have it now."

He had saved up his coins for ages. I came out a few weeks ago to a giant mound of pennies and nickels, seven dollars in all. He wanted to order a book from the Scholastic order by himself. I exchanged the coins for a check and mailed it off, only to have a bit of bank-balance-related drama in the meantime. When his book didn't arrive in time, I was so worried it was our fault. He'd be crushed. Turns out the order was late. He got his book and spent the weekend reading it at to me.

My son: "Um, Uh, Mom?"
Me: "What?"
My son: "Wha.. er, eh, what... oooh, ahh, what, what, er, ah, oooh ah, wha.... what is it ... oooh, ahh.... what is it when people, when people, when they can't get out a word sound?"
Me: "You mean stuttering?"
My son: "Yeah. I'm glad ... ooh, ahh... I'm glad I, er, ah, oooh .... I'm glad I don't do anything like that."

When I woke up, there was an elaborately folded construction-paper package on the bathroom counter: "TO MOM FROM DAVID. OPEN IT." There was a picture of a pterosaur saying "I love Mom," and also a twirled blue and red ribbon and a nickel.

He came bursting out of the school front doors, elbowing his friend and cracking a joke. He didn't even glance at me. He looked so dang old. I was so proud. And more than a little freaked out. An hour later, when he cried over something trivial and ran to me, I felt awful for being a tiny bit relieved.

We read the part involving an incarcerated dragon in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He almost got choked up about the fictional creature. Later, when he compared it to circus elephants, he did get choked up, and angry. Dang, I love this kid.

He told me he had a good day, but held my hand a little too tightly. It was slick with sweat from both our hands by the time we'd finished our walk. "OK, Mom," he confessed. "I had only a sort of good day." By the time he was done confiding in me, he said, it felt like a "100 percent good day."

He's going to write a book some day about how turkey vultures are beautiful and not ugly at all, he told me this morning.

Status

I was telling my mom last night that she should get an account on Facebook to keep up with my siblings and me. She doesn't have an Internet connection at home (can you really live that way?), so she declined for now. But it occurred to me -- I'm careful enough with what I throw out to the online ether in case a potential editor or employer looks me up, but what if my mom did get a Facebook account?

I decided to speculate --

This week's status updates, if my mom became my Facebook friend:

Kimberly called that financial institution that keeps calling her mom's number, and it turns out they were just calling to say what a responsible, model borrower she is.

Kimberly is replying to all her e-mail in a timely manner, especially e-mails from her mom.

Kimberly never speeds.

Kimberly is meticulously balancing her checkbook, just like she does each and every week.

Kimberly is going to bed at a decent hour each night, and rising with the sun each morning.

Kimberly is totally not wasting time online. In fact, this is the only time she's been online all day. She's going offline now to get big-time important grownup stuff done.

Kimberly hardly ever has Diet Coke for breakfast.

Kimberly's bank account is thriving and she doesn't ever dread checking the balance, despite what anyone may have heard.

Kimberly's son listens to her and minds absolutely all the time, as she has developed a consistent system of discipline thanks to her own upbringing.

Kimberly is putting work before play, and not deluding herself that play is work.

Kimberly is going to the doctor regularly for checkups.

Kimberly is not writing this update to procrastinate real work. On the contrary, all her work is already finished, well ahead of schedule.

Kimberly is not cracking her knuckles.

Kimberly's backyard is in pristine condition, thanks to the hard work she puts into it each and every morning.

Kimberly loves getting phone calls from her mom.

Kimberly is being honest with that last one.

Falling (now with 60 percent more gratuitous bubble pics!)

The fall doesn't really come when it officially arrives around here.

The calendar says fall started a few days ago. Fall break is next week, and I'm hoping to go camping with my family, or at least take a bunch of extended walks. Maybe see a few early mornings and teach my son some September-October constellations, heedless of bedtimes and school nights. But it's still getting up to 102 degrees today and tomorrow.

By the time winter officially arrives in three months, we'll have just gotten used to enjoying cool temperatures, and it will sort of seem like we plunge into a cold winter with only a tiny autumn intermission. (Yes, friends/family in the Northeast and pretty much everywhere but Arizona. We do consider 65 degrees "plunging into cold.")

Right now, right this second, it seems a little like fall. It's still early enough in the day, in the 80s. There's a cool breeze. The air feels great to breathe, like drinking. The leaves (most don't turn color and drop around here) gleam in some barely discernible way, and the way the light lies on them seems to indicate that this is an in-between time. There'll be these moments off and on until winter, but not always. Mostly we just plunge in without realizing it.

Unfortunately, the "fall" in the other sense of the word seems to have arrived and moved in at Hosey-Wilson headquarters. I don't have a job. Can't seem to sell shit. Can't seem to write shit. My husband has a job, but one for which he is ridiculously overqualified. We have no money. We bicker about stupid crap. I propel myself out of the secondary chair in our home office. (We call it the cat's chair usually, but right now husband is in MY chair. Why is he on the computer anyway? Doesn't he know I need it?! Damn him and his need to unwind!). I holler something and slam the door, only to open it again in seven seconds, come back in, sit back down, and whine at him. What is wrong with us?

I am obsessed with the wrong kind of fall. David was playing on the little stone wall in our backyard last night, the one that surrounds a fire pit that hosts arthropods rather than flames. He pranced, balanced, leaped from the break in the wall to the other side, gripped the ledge with his bare toes. It was already slick from blowing bubbles; he'd flung soapy water all over it. Quit it, I told him again and again. He didn't care. He wasn't afraid of the fall. He didn't think about what a fall could mean. There's hard ground beneath you, I kept saying. A fall would be awful. But I never really do fall, he kept telling me. Even if he did, he reasonsed, it isn't really falling. I almost always catch him, or he catches himself. "It's just a half-fall, Mom," he said. "You're making it scarier by talking about it."

I had another glimpse of the good fall after that, last night. We just ... were.

I should back up. Yesterday began nicely -- I got some things done around the house, got a few random blog comments (how I can be reasonably sure I haven't arrived: that still makes me insanely happy), received a request to use a photo I'd forgotten I had even taken. The morning was clear and blue and breezy. Then my husband called and asked me to check our bank account balance, and well ... I mounted the fast track to the other kind of fall. By the time I left to pick up my son, all I could think was: We have no money. I didn't get anything done. Who cares about that photo; you're a writer, dammit. And why is it so hot again?!

And then, later, in the backyard, my son had the gall to play around with falling. He giggled about it. He jumped. Plunged. He landed on his bare feet, hard. Right beside where the backyard black widow used to live. (Not to be confused with the porch black widows, who are technically also in the backyard.) Sticks and web fragments stuck to his bare, bubble soapy feet.

He plunged, and loved it. He then moved on to the swings, where he again tested my cardiological health by leaping off the swing and trying tricks "that some guy at school showed me, before he fell off and skinned his face." But he survived, and my heart rate managed to stay below 200. He closed his eyes and swung hard, "making my own wind," he said. A fat lizard with a tail longer than its body scurried up and down the wall beside us. A giant dragonfly flitted in and out of the tree I never trim. The sky glowed with final smears of blue and cinnamon before going completely dark, and the crescent moon and stars winked on. He jumped one last time, trusting the ground to catch him without incident.

I don't know. Maybe the analogy isn't perfect. Maybe "fall" and "fall" is just a coincidence of language, and doesn't necessarily accommodate my hangups. Because the plunge would have to come first, right?

Because the thing is, I love plunges. I love roller coasters, cliff diving, those rides that just drop you over and over again, the feeling of leaving your stomach and heart somewhere above your head. As a kid, I liked that sensation of falling when I inevitably tipped too far in my chair. The only part that sucked was the actual collision, which is the part I equated with fall. If that part didn't happen -- like with roller coasters and diving into a lake and taking a chance that scares the crap out of you but turns out OK -- it didn't really count as a fall. The before-fall slice of time -- that part was great. Like the mornings around here lately, the almost-falls.

Whatever. Maybe my analogy almost works after all. Maybe falls are always fleeting around here. It's a matter of perspective. Maybe you're supposed to dwell on one, but I've picked the wrong one.

I'm applying to everything I can get my hands on. I'm submitting every day. I'm playing outside every evening. My husband and I are using the changes and challenges in our careers to grow closer, to support each other. I'm taking every ride I can. I have to. I'm in the plunge.

Maybe the fall doesn't really ever come. We'll plunge right in, all of us. And maybe it'll be pretty awesome.

Or at least, maybe we won't kill ourselves from a concussion after mixing soap suds and cement. And black widows.

Snapshots, featuring me!

I can't find his camera, which probably means he's been using it even more than I realized. For now though, I'll guest post my own photos to accompany the wordy snapshots. Cause, you know, I take a shot or two sometimes also.

**He was supposed to be getting ready for bed. I opened the bathroom door. No David. Movement to the right caught my eye. Hand soap was slathered over the cupboards, counter and sink edge in a thick orange film, and a giant cloud of soap suds towered from the sink and threatened to slop over onto the floor. Above all this, balancing high on the soap-slick bathroom counter, he stood, swaying and grabbing the flimsy mirrored medicine cabinet door for support. I glared. Lifted him down. He knew. For once, no protest, just "Sorry, Mom. I only started doing it yesterday."**

**He came upstairs as I was watching the sky deepen from the loft window. "What're you do... Oh." He stood and watched with me as the sky glowed in patches of peach and maroon, and doves careened up and down with no apparent purpose other than to ride the fading light. "Take lots of pictures," he told me. I did.**

**He brought my husband his birthday presents. "This one's from just Mom; the rest are from both of us," David said. "Well," my husband replied in his stupid voice, "Mom said she'd be getting me a certain present, and I certainly hope that one is just from her." My son glanced at me. I chose not to elaborate.**

**After Obama's speech, oblivious to the controversies and fears, both imagined and real, with which adults concern themselves, he gave his opinion on Obama's mother ("She had to do stuff on her own sometimes, but she loved him like how you love me, so she did it."), on persistence ("Did you know that lady who wrote Harry Potter had to send it out a bunch of times? Barack Obama said so. I wonder how many tries I'll need to publish my book."), and trying one's best in school ("Yeah; I think he said something about it. Can I have a juice pouch?")**

**I picked up the director's cut of Watchmen for my husband for his birthday. The questions started at once. "Why's that guy making fire? What're those guys doing? Are they good guys or bad guys? Why can't I watch it? When can I watch it? What's on that one guy's face?" Finally, a little fed up, I said "David, don't worry about it. You wouldn't like it anyway. It's not for kids, not even big boys." Of course, he protested. "Really," I said, "you wouldn't like it. It's AN ADULT MOVIE, and it's for Dad and me!" At these last few words, the whole of Borders went quiet.**

**Particularly bright splotches of cumulus clouds in the late-afternoon light drew my attention, and I set up the tripod in the front yard. He followed with his own camera, capturing a few shots of the giant solid clouds and then moving on to some wispy high-flung streaks I hadn't seen. He wanted us to just lay on the car hood and watch the clouds afterward. A passing neighbor chuckled at us. We must have looked odd, I guess. I didn't mind the reaction. David, on the other hand, didn't even notice the reaction. Just said hi and went back to cloud gazing. I think that must mean I'm doing something right.**

**"It's called the K-something, because C was already used up. It's the orange square," David said to his friend while digging in the sand under the slide, referring to a color-coded time line in a dinosaur book they'd been reading. "The dinosaurs all went extinct after the orange square, and it was probably a comet or an asteroid or something hitting the earth, plus lots of volcanoes, and the weather changed." His friend: "But some of them might have slowly died off, and not gotten to the edge of the orange square! So maybe it wasn't just an asteroid." David: "But the rest of them all died then; none of them got to the yellow square." (Yellow square = Tertiary Period.) "AND, there's, like, a layer of space sand on the earth right then!" His friend: "Wanna trade dinosaur books?" They agreed, then they threw sand at each other and dug for the K-T boundary in the neighborhood playground.**

**I got out of my car at the grocery store, and there was a guy standing feet from me. "HAHA!" he laughed for no apparent reason. "Working hard or hardly working?" "Um, probably the later, this time of day, hehe," I said, trying to be polite. He had pushed the automatic thing on his car, so I heard it beeping, but he was walking away from it and toward my son and me. I marched toward the store with much more deliberateness and speed than necessary. He was gone by the time I came back out ten minutes later. Still, I glanced in my back seat before getting in the car. My son thought I was getting his seat ready.**

**He made his own concoction for my husband's birthday snack: half-set chocolate pudding (with much more fudge pudding mix than strictly necessary), cookie crumbs smashed and sprinkled over it, and gummy worms crawling through the soil. My husband actually loved it. Of course he would have said so either way, but I think David could sense the sincerity. He was so proud.**

**I was hoping to spend the afternoon with him, but his friend called and asked if he could come over and play. I was a little sad, but he was so excited. Of course I said yes. He had a great time. Part of me wishes he still only had the best times with me, but this is part of being a parent, I suppose. And he was so happy.**

Remembering

I always feel kind of bad.

If you're a writer, especially one who does any kind of personal writing, maybe you understand. I always feel sort of bad that I don't have anything to say. Well, maybe not anything, but not anything worth reading. I, along with just about everyone in the country who has ever put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, wrote pages of regrettable words in the days following 9/11. It all sucked, every last word of it. Sucked hard. I didn't want to add my own mediocrity to the stream of what was already making people become complacent about a man leaping off a freaking burning building, so those pages never saw the light of day. I think I threw them out last time we moved.

Also, I don't have anything special to add. I can add my own snippets, I suppose: How I got choked up (though I never would have expected it of myself) at a patriotic song the radio played the next day, interspersed with a speech from Bush. How I idiotically asked a store clerk, on September 11, 2002, for the date. I didn't know anyone directly involved in the tragedy, but I know a couple of people who had close friends die that day.

Of course, like everyone, I have my own where-were-you-when story. I was working the overnight shift at a factory that makes small explosive products (which is much less exciting than it sounds). I was a trainer/sometime supervisor, so my "overnight shift" was 6:30 p.m. to 8 or 9 the next morning. Also, I had just discovered I was pregnant and certain issues relating to that had their own attendant stresses. I worked/barfed/worked/worked/worked/barfed/drove home/barfed/tried to sleep/barfed/actually slept/got up/barfed/drove in/started over. That was it, every day. So I didn't get much news during that period in my life. It was because of this, I assume, that the first question my friend asked when he called that morning was "Where in New York does your family live?"

It was my first day off in about two weeks, and after I had a nap (or maybe before; I don't actually remember that part), I was going to meet a friend of mine. I was kind of excited, and it was silly. I had started to tell a few people about my pregnancy (mainly my boss, in case he wondered what the hell was wrong with me; and a guy I picked up before work one evening when he wondered why we had to pull over RIGHT NOW), but I hadn't told anyone from my "old" life* -- the circle of friends I had before I went crazy, basically. I couldn't tell the person I wanted to tell the most (my husband, who was then my ex and not yet my again-boyfriend) because, well, I just couldn't. But I had managed to decide to tell another good friend (who was an ex, had been my husband's best friend, and would briefly become an again-boyfriend -- come on, you have these things too). He was calling to invite me to that lunch. We were going have ribs. (Damn, did I crave ribs.) And I was going to get to tell someone who knew me. I felt good about that.

"New York? Why?" I asked. My brain was already falling asleep, and I didn't really get it.

"Have you seen the news today?"

I turned it on. Of course, no further discussion was necessary. There was the somber-faced announcer. The ten million tickers going in different directions as if statistics and sheer volume of partial information would alleviate the pain. The two planes crashing into the two towers over and over again. A guy leaped from one of them.

I didn't really take it in much, right then. My family is from Upstate (read: not New York City) New York, so that was OK, as far as I knew. I had a few friends in New York, but I didn't think they went near the towers. I didn't really know, actually. And the guy wasn't telling us anything new.

And we went out to eat. I'm still not sure how OK that is. But we'd said and felt all we really could about it, and the immediacy of it had somehow prevented it from sinking in all the way. We still had this one day that we'd managed to eke out a lunch together. We still both had crap in our lives to bitch about. We liked the ribs. Hated the dessert. The televisions in the restaurant had the coverage on. We didn't watch it much.

Three months previously, I'd gotten myself up shit creek without a paddle -- hell, I'd lopped off my hands. That day, I finally told someone whose opinion mattered about it. Exactly six months from that day, my son would be born to much drama, pain, and joy. I hadn't even begun to deal with all the everyday, mundane drama in my own little bubble. How could I possibly wrap my brain around the almost 3,000 lives lost that day and the millions of lives it would directly influence?

See? That's why I never wrote about 9/11. I'm a self-centered little shit.

But I did cope, eventually, with both my own troubles and the nation's. I got emotionally invested. I cried, a little. Wrote a lot. Barfed, though I'm pretty sure that was related to my physical condition. Made jokes at completely inappropriate times.

One of the things Bush said in the speech that was so sentimentally patriotic it would be mocked at any other time -- and one of the things I think everyone unequivocally supported -- was (and I'm paraphrasing here) that we have to move on, remember the little things in our lives too. We can't let this define us. I think that's what I was trying to do, in my own way. I was trying not to let working at a job I kind of hated define me. I was trying not to let being the Rebellious Daughter define me. I was trying not to let unwed pregnancy define me. And I sure wasn't going to let some asshole mass murderers define my one available day of real life in ages.

Eight years later, this morning, my son and I laid in bed together, in that sublime in-between time when you don't quite remember what day or time or anything it is, just that you're together, he's already seven and a half, for goodness sake, his hair smells like coconuts, and you're happy. Then we fought about his homework. Then we made up. As he sucked my cheek in in a overenthusiastic goodbye kiss, I saw a ring of stuffed red, white, and blue paper-bag turkeys along the school's perimeter fence. (Were they trying to be patriotic and get a jump on Thanksgiving? Who knows.) They were interspersed with red, white and blue streamers and balloons. I remembered. David did too. I got a little choked up. Then, he punched my butt and yelled, "Poopdeck!"

Little things and big things.

I know two people with birthdays on this day. I never know how to wish them a happy birthday without sounding like I'm forgetting to remember for a moment -- but still, who forgets about birthdays? I bet some people do. I bet they get less "Happy Birthdays" than just about anyone. It's too bad.

I'm going to hit "Publish Post" now, before I have time to re-evaluate this round of words and navel-gazing, or be embarrassed that I talked about gastrointestinal issues, or even obliquely deprecate myself any further. Because I think that, at the very least, as with so many other things on the exact same day, a little distance has deepened some things, eased others -- helped.

*Except for my mom, of course, who was as awesome and supportive as I expected she would be.