Daily Archive

This week in Paris has done me so much good, though I’m not the one who went. I try to find ways to challenge myself, still living quietly (not really one for much living out loud) but embracing unpredictability. So far this week there has been no try. Which seems to me is as it should be.

There are things in life that I know myself to be suited for, but which are not in my present or in any version of my future that I am actively working to promote. I have many skills that I do not monetize or otherwise reap the tangible benefits of, but still use every day, and value the intangible residuals all the more for their exclusive status as the outcome of my efforts.

People ask why I don’t open a bakery, have a child, write a book…I have done all of those things many times over, in part and in bits and pieces and in every way except actually. Every time some related component of those life passages comes up I think: I don’t need to go down this road again. I’ve already explored this thought, baked this cake, navigated this sticky wicket of human interaction, and figured it out for myself.

Every time I’m wrong about what I need to do, whether I need to do it, and why, except for the figuring out element. All claims of math-incompetence to the contrary, I like to solve problems. Word problems especially. Back when I was in high school, my dad used to try to explain higher mathematical concepts to me, but all I wanted to know was the bare minimum, what I needed to know to get by. How quickly I could fit everything into a tidy problem set that showed my work, box my answers and call it a day.

I think more and more these days about how much I don’t know, and how to proceed from that point, instead of just being overwhelmed by the undulating expanse of my ignorance. I think about how irritated I used to get about my mom’s sanguine approach to even the most crazy-making of endeavors – raising seven children without the benefits of television (distraction on tap), high-fructose corn syrup (high highs=sudden, total crashouts) or fast food (timesaver, it’s right there in the name!).

The image of my mom’s hand making like Pac-Man while she spoke her truth about TV (“it takes your time, and just…EATS it!”) does a quick dissolve into the memory of my seething, wrathful teenage embarrassment and roiling impatience at her failure to assist me with being just like everyone else. I’m certain that I spared her none of my spite, gave no quarter to her love and care and wisdom – as certain as I am that my mom has no idea what Pac-Man is, to this day.

So when I ask her how she pulled it off, I am humbled by the fact that she can say “love, that’s all you need, and lots of it” not just with a straight face, but a happy one, so happy I can tell it is even over the phone. All of my seeking and agonizing and tilting at windmills and a few things that I’ve only convinced myself could be windmills I might want to tilt at for some odd reason brings me to the same conclusion that my mom’s been sure of all along.