Helms Deep

Yesterday a friend texted me to see if I needed anything. My father passed away several weeks ago and I've received many of these messages - emails, texts, phone calls. And really, it is hard to know what to say.

For the most part, we've got it covered. Hubs has been amazing with the kids and extra help on the homefront. Our neighbors have rallied around, even stocking the fridge when we returned from the funeral. Work has been lovely about giving me some time, even during the busiest time of year. Life is moving along and we're all settling in to this new reality without my Dad. But then what do I need?

I need everything to stop, even for a few minutes, the whole world still so that I can be quiet and think. I need to understand the incomprehensible. There must be a way to wrap my brain around this, but there just isn't time. Not in early December, just before the holidays. Not with a sick kid at home and preschooler to shuffle around. Not with piles of laundry and dinners to cook. Not with work to catch up on and more arrangements to be made for the burial in a few weeks. Not enough time in my lifetime, so the world spins on. Just as it should. And I need something impossible.

This week Hubs and I have been staying up late geeking out with the Lord of the Rings on dvd in several hour chunks. Last night was the second movie and my favorite part of the entire series - the epic battle of Helms Deep. Men, women, and children flee to a fortress in the mountain, sensing ambush, but moving forward anyway, going to the only place they can think of.

Like taking cover down in the basement in front of a movie when you've got a million other things to do. The illusion of safety, at least for the moment.

Lessons

Recently, Little Guy walked in on me trimming my eyebrows with a tiny pair of scissors, or as I like to call it, getting the Italian out. He asked tons of questions and though I tried to explain about the scissors near the eyes and the need for a grown-up and that he should never ever do this himself and that he would probably never need to do it, I could see the wheels turning.

He ran off to play and I thought - well, that was a mistake. Add that to the list of mistakes I have made so often as a parent. Sometimes innocently enough, but still.

Then the other day I heard this report on NPR. The piece was not about parenting, it was about Syrian politics, though one could say that both are equally chaotic (or at least I might say it). This reference is not in the text, but during the broadcast when the reporter asked the interviewee about mistakes, he corrected him and called them lessons. This struck a chord with me.

So I'm not making mistakes, I am making lessons. I think, for now, I'll go with that. And hide those little scissors too.

Living the dream

Since the passing of Steve Jobs we've all been blasted with snippets of his wisdom, the most famous (or viral) of which is a commencement address during which he encourages us to live our dreams or some crap like that. No denying the guy was a visionary. No denying that he changed all of our lives. For that, I admire the guy. But do I actually want to follow his lead?

Would you be willing to make people cry at meetings? Steve Jobs did. Or to give up having children? Oprah. Or to lead a life that is a complete contradiction to the image you sell? Martha.

The question isn't whether we're willing to follow our dreams or to pursue what makes us happy because really, we all are. The question is - are we willing to do it at any cost?

For most of us the answer is no, not at any cost. So we end up with our ordinary lives. And that's really okay. Even admirable.

The mind is a terrible thing

I had no appreciation for the mysteries of the brain until a few years back when I wound up with chronic insomnia. Once I got it into my head that I couldn't sleep, I actually couldn't. For around a year and a half, I survived on three to four hours a night, sometimes in two to three small naps.

The worst part was, the more I tried to think it through, the worse it got. For the first time ever, the brain that I had always relied on was actually working against me. It blew my mind. And sort of changed my personal philosophy forever.

Anyway, I am hyper-aware of how the brain can convince us of things, even when we should believe otherwise, even when all evidence points to the truth, the opposite of what we've gotten into our heads. Or on our heads.

Which brings us to lice.

Ha! You didn't see that coming did you?

So one of Girlie's friends has lice, poor kid. Of course, both Girlie and I have been itching ever since the mother sent the message. I've checked Girlie over many many many times. Nada. But still, here we are. Itchy. Just got a lice update email from the friend. Itchy to a new level.

And then there is my other friend who recently commented, half seriously, that she had been wondering if she had some sort of auto-immune problem. She's been feeling run down, achey, cold symptoms, etc. Her brother died over the summer, so the illness is way more likely to be grief sickness, depression. But the terrible brain, such as it is, goes to the worst and most evil idea first.

It makes me wonder though - can I harness these crazy thoughts for good?

If only. For now I am googling homeopathic lice cures.

Just in case.

Date night

Nope not talking about date night with the Hubs, though my friend recently commented that the Mr. and I have been going out a good bit. I told her that we'd been weighing our options and recently decided that dinner and a babysitter is roughly equal to the cost of a marriage therapy session, including the wine. So, date night it is.

She thought I was kidding.

But this time date night refers to the fact that I am just home fresh from a "first date" with a new girlfriend. Met a great writer gal at a reading in July and just had a feeling we'd connect. This girl isn't in my everyday circle, so meeting up again was going to involve an actual invitation. After becoming facebook friends, I took the plunge and asked her out. Schedules kept colliding and months later we finally worked it out.

Tonight we met for dinner and drinks. I wore perfume and cute earrings. We had all that so where are you from kind of chit chat. All of which, I'm 99% sure (though it has been a while), qualifies it as an official date.

Anyway, it went well and we left with plans to exchange short stories.

Which is pretty much like second base for a fiction writer.