We’re on the cusp of Spring, you can smell it in the damp air like pheromones. Grass shoots tint the meadows, still covered with leaves. On some property near home, Chas ditched his wellies to run sockfooted down a long dirt trail, his cheeks bounced up and down as he ran and sang. He shoved his head into a hole in a tree, shouted, and plunged his foot into a burrow near the creek. Life was hidden everywhere. But closer to the lake we passed under a gossiping flock of Red-Winged Blackbirds, a throaty playful labyrinth of song in the pecan treetops. Once we were directly below them, and they noticed us listening, all talk ceased and the troupe flew away like a fluttering, carefree black veil. Chas followed them with his eyes. It was quiet like that for a few seconds, before Ford started belting out White Stripes lyrics (I still have ‘Blue Orchid’ pumping in my head). On the drive home, close to dusk, a very large Coyote jumped the fence into the chaparral. I shouted and pointed it out to the kids, almost running off the road, but when I looked back at them, both heads were buried into the sides of their carseats, asleep.
SPT: All of Me :week 2
This is my vice. I remember trying to stop biting my nails when I was about eight. There was a small vial of Stops-It or No-Bite or something, which tastes bitter. It worked for a while, but long enough. Look at this! I can’t believe people see me do this. Yet, whenever I have a dry cuticle, it has to GO, and the fastest way to remove it is to….bite at it?
I’ve just set a new goal for the year. I’m NOT going to walk around looking like this.
Something’s Gotta Give
The house is thick with testosterone, even when they are all sound asleep. At night, the clean scent of my lotion cuts through it like a warm knife through butter. In fact, I can barely smell a thing, it’s that subtle. But Damon will sit up in bed, half asleep, and declare, “I can’t take that smell! You don’t understand, it’s killing me.”
I’m outnumbered by men, three to one. And that’s not including the dogs, who (for the love of God) are not here right now. The boys are getting older, though, and more willful. Chas is already throwing flailing tantrums, of the head-bashing variety, when his brother takes the basketball away from him. Ford, for his part, is already a little man.
I was carrying my open laptop into the bedroom today and found him lying on my bed, watching some afterschool, non-PBS-type, commercial-interrupted cartoon show. I stood there, frozen in the doorway. And he just lay there, staring at the tv, oblivious to the screaming going on in my head. And I couldn’t help notice that his hand was, as usual, in his pants.
“Ford, this show has guns. You know how I feel about guns! I hate them. Guns and greed are the root of all evil.” Well, except testosterone, right?
“Well, Mom, you’ll just have to keep your eyes on the laptop, then, okay?”
