I'm Ready for My Close-Up

It's a beautiful day in DC. The breeze smells of rain though there's not a cloud in the perfect blue sky. The Newseum gave away balloons, apparently, that said "Free Speech Rocks." I saw some that ran away from their owners and floated free, ever-skyward, and I wondered where they might finally end up. I had the windows rolled down and the radio blaring. The breeze kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear like a lover. It turned the radio off after a time, to listen to the sounds of the city, fractured laughter, a virtuoso drum solo played on overturned plastic garbage cans and paint buckets, admonishments and instructions from parents to children, snippets from someone else's radio, promiscuous horns, assorted languages.

It's the kind of day that makes you feel everything is right in the world, even though you know it's not, one that gives you a glimpse into an urban Eden, though thankfully the tourists are clothed.

I got to thinking about free speech as I drove by the White House, and the Newseum is right, it does rock. I can have a bumper sticker that says pro-life, pro-choice, Obama, NObama, Give Blood. One that's pro-soldier or anti-war. A fish for God, one with feet for Darwin, a shark because it just plain looks cool. I believe the particular opinion is less important than the right to state it.

And then I got to thinking about bumper stickers and what people believe.

I believe that issues like abortion cannot be condensed into bumper stickers, but if a sticker starts a conversation, then that's a good start. I believe in God, and evolution, and karma, all at the same time because I don't believe these are concepts that are mutually exclusive. I believe in love, but that it doesn't conquer all. I believe a fight now and again clears the air and that it's easier to steer when there's no fog. I believe a big hurt now and then reminds you of how important it is to pay attention to little things. I believe that flowers have magical powers and that therefore spring is a sacred season. I believe life is precious and ends long before most people have figured out how to live it. I believe there are things we are not meant to understand and if you don't know which things I am talking about, watch the eleven o'clock news. I believe there's a good kind of crazy.

Most importantly, I believe a little goes a long way, unless you're buying gasoline. A little smile, a little love, a little hope, a little music. A little sunlight and a little laughter. A little of you, a little of me, and a little of we. With that and a few good bumper stickers, we can change the world.

The Mermaid's Child

I've always been a mermaid, born of the water, yet tied to the earth. I can passably mingle in any crowd, but there's scarcely anywhere I feel completely comfortable.

As an adult, I've (mostly) come to terms with this, even getting a mermaid tattoo a few years ago in an effort to embrace this facet of me. I've come to see it as a strength, this ability to adapt to a variety of situations, to befriend an assortment of interesting personalities, but this was not always so.

It's difficult growing up as the weird kid, looking in on a life you think you'd like to have but can't. I wanted those girls to like me, wanted to be one of them, wanted for just one day to be the center of attention in a positive way. It was not to be.

I never played sports in a school where girls' soccer was queen. I never cared for it and, because of an unlikely congenital knee defect, running was physically painful. I was a tomboy, theoretically a positive in a sport-centric culture. However, I also loved school, and spent my recesses and gym classes grading papers. Note: "Teacher's pet" is NOT a compliment.

They teased me mercilessly, calling me all manner of horrible names I cannot bear to recount. I was a sensitive child and they knew exactly how to provoke tears. I was beaten up once, but I wouldn't fight back, and that, at least, seemed to prevent routine physical harassment, having successfully taken the entertainment out of that pursuit.

I have carried these scars into adulthood.

My child is very much like me. He gets along best with adults, who appreciate and are not intimidated by his intelligence, and small children, who delight in his silliness. His peers, however, are quite another matter indeed. He is at the same time too sophisticated and too juvenile to relate. He is socially awkward, fearful and confused about how to approach the building of a friendship. He, too, is a mermaid, grasping at adulthood yet bound to childhood. It is the nature of his chronological age and of his pedigree. As my boyfriend says, "You can see where he gets it from."

I have, over the years, wondered why I had to endure the insults hurled at me, the indignation, and especially the isolation of being extraneous. My son is experiencing a childhood something like mine, teased and forsaken. He feels alienated, and he can't understand why. He longs to be a part, instead of apart.

Now I understand that every pockmark of my past was in fact essential preparation to guide this child through his own darkness and into the light, where he can bloom.

I hope to spend these scabs well.

Bats in the Belfry

Strange things happen to me. I'm a weirdness magnet. I often say that if a frozen chicken were to fall out of a cloudless summer sky, it would land at my feet. I'm not complaining, really, I just spend a significant amount of time wondering what the hell that was all about.

So I came home late the other day and found a bat in the house. See? Strange. And it's not the first time either. Stranger still. Has this ever happened to you? I didn't think so.

The bat was hanging upside down on the intake grate for the air conditioner above the basement door. I woke Tremayne to help me free the bat. He's not acclimated to this weirdness magnet thing quite yet I don't think. He still looks at me funny when I say things like, "Babe, would you get up and help me get this bat out of the house?"

I climbed up on a step stool with a leather glove on my hand and tried to coax him into my hand while Tre stood on the landing of the stairs to discourage him from heading that way. The bat backed up and opened his little mouth as wide as possible to hiss at me, exposing tiny, razor-sharp teeth. Very fierce for a kiwi in a jacket and I told him as much.

He left the relative safety of his perch and flew around the house for a bit, buzzing me like a jet in Top Gun. I think this is the coolest thing ever. If you could have seen me then, you would have witnessed an expression of childlike wonder I'm sure. It's amazing to me how they fly, the silence of it, their wings only flapping sporadically and sounding of a silk curtain fluttering in a light breeze. They seem to hang in the air, like a slowly falling leaf on an autumn afternoon. Finally, but too soon for me, he found the open French doors to the deck and flew into the darkness.

It's not such a bad deal to be a weirdness magnet when cool stuff happens.