apolitical

The matter of politics is presently unavoidable. It is crowding my mail box, flooding the internet, and blocking the scenery as I drive about town. I find myself wishing desperately for November 5th when all of those signs start to disappear. I’ve looked forward to that day since May when the first signs started popping up. Let me be clear – I vote. I’ve always voted. I will continue to vote because I greatly cherish this right. My frustration is not with the electoral process; it is with the political machine and its abrasive grinding gears -the network analysis and the crazy emails and the phone calls and the talking heads. Quite simply, I do not need their voices to help me make up my mind.

compulsion and creativity

I am supposed to be writing every day now. I was actually doing this until a few weeks ago then it all got out of hand and I found myself sneaking off from my work and family to be with my story. So I had to end that little affair.

For me at least, compulsion and creativity have always been intertwined. One does not exist without the other. Perhaps that is naïve. Perhaps there is some other way. If there is, enlighten me.

snips and snails and puppy dog tails

My beautiful, wonderful, caring little boy is obsessed with weapons. He no longer plays with toys, not even monster trucks. It’s all weapons, all the time. Weapons and ropes. The ropes are to be worn around the waist as a means to store the weapons (and also to tie people up when necessary). Sticks are actually not sticks at all. They are swords, guns or a combination of the two. Acorns and nuts are, of course, bombs. Three dollars of Seth’s birthday money was used to purchase a plastic Grim Reaper ax nearly twice his size from Wal-Mart. I saw it as I approached the Halloween isle and tried desperately to divert his attention but it was no use. Shaun is apparently delighted with this new behavior. So proud that he whittled the end of one of my wooden curtain rods to resemble the point of a spear.

Part of me understands that all this is a very natural and passing stage. Seth will someday grow out of a love for daggers, and guns, and talking, clanging swords – surely he will do that. Some day he will not say things like “I will kill your heart” or “You want some of me?” So for now I just smile a bewildered smile at those comments and encourage him to move in slow motion during sword play so as to avoid whacking people in the head. When I have the chance I teach him what it means to love and treat others with respect. Sometimes I wonder if any of that makes sense to his testosterone-bathed brain. But then I hear comments like the one he told me from the back seat of the car the other day - “If you chop somebody’s leg off, that’s not very nice.” I looked at his angelic face in the rear view mirror. “That’s right, sweetheart,” I said. “It is not nice to chop someone’s leg off.” So despite all the tough talk and the weaponry, maybe he’s been listening to me after all.

oatmeal battle scar

I am, as it turns out, somewhat accident-prone. I can go for weeks without displaying any real uncoordinated behavior but then it catches up with me. At that point I typically experience several mishaps in quick succession which serve to remind me once again the need to be a little more careful.

Yesterday it was Rachel vs. boiling hot oatmeal. Steel cut oats to be exact. Inexplicably, I missed the bowl and poured a good bit of the steaming stickiness right on to my leg. I yelped and tore off my shorts then tried desperately to push my leg up over the counter and into the sink for some cold running water. It took longer than it should have for me to realize that was not a very good plan. I’m simply not that flexible. I glimpsed over at Seth and my nephew, Avery, suddenly realizing that they may have been traumatized in some way by the incident or at least by my reaction to it. They were not. I tried to enlist Seth’s help by asking him to get ice for me but he just kept saying “underpanties” and laughing. I got the ice myself. Today I have a little battle scar on my knee (that’s what we call them at our house, battle scars, booboos are for wimps - at least according to Shaun and Seth). Oh well, at least it’s not nearly as bad as the time I almost blew myself up.

confessions

I was over at a friend’s house a few weeks ago. We have children that are close in age who like to play and/or fight with each other. Usually my friend and I talk about kid things during these play dates and that’s what we were discussing until I changed the topic of conversation to the matter of confession. I was immensely curious about the subject and - this is an important detail - I am not catholic so I figured I would ask my friend who happens to be married to one. I know this first-hand because I was actually in her wedding. It was a really big wedding and probably the most entertaining one I’ve ever attended. At one point the old folks were having so much fun they started swigging champagne straight from the bottle. There was also a brawl between two girls for the bouquet and other silly things of that nature. Lots of fun to watch. I also learned from my friend’s wedding that non-catholics are not actually allowed on the stage during the ceremony. I’m not sure if I was allowed on the steps or not. At any rate, my friend married a very nice catholic guy and is now my window into the catholic faith. I am otherwise surrounded by protestants and heathens.

So I asked my friend if she goes to confession. The details are sketchy but I think she said that she does not and her husband does not but maybe other members of the family do because they are quite devout. I said I’d been thinking about confession and how nice it would be to just go into the booth there and confess my sins, what a relief it would be to release those burdens in that way. I think I said something like that. Then she told me that she wasn’t sure but she didn’t think they did confessions that way any more, that she was pretty sure that you just made and appointment with the priest and went to his office to talk things over.

For some reason, this new information made me very sad. I liked the idea of anonymous confession. Not that I could actually go to confession, since I’m not catholic, but it sounded like it could actually beneficial.

You see, I’m not in the habit of confessing my sins to anyone else but I’ve been doing a little reading lately and I’m finding that this is actually something I’m supposed to do. I guess I’ve always just skipped the middle man and gone straight to God. Only sometimes, maybe it would be good to hear another human voice on the other end of the conversation. So I’m still thinking about confession and I’m wondering what you think.