Saturday, March 27, 2010

Hello to whoever is out there, and I hope someone is. I am a woman who lives in a house with her husband and raises four children day in and day out, for better or the inevitable worse. It is a happy life, and a wild ride. I am also a language professional, and this is the place where I hope to let my professionalism drop to the floor like a bathrobe and stand naked in the wind of free words and daring thought.

My eldest daughter once asked me "mommy, won't you come outside and play?" It was long ago, 10 years at least, and I stood at the kitchen window leaning out on the cold concrete ledge, my hands and head whirling with all the things I was doing at that very minute, and said carelessly, "In a minute!"

She stopped twirling and began to skip away, calling as she went "Which minute?".

She never stopped for an answer. But I have been asking myself her question ever since. It comes back to me time and again as the days disappear behind me and the door slams shut in the wake of their retreat.

"Which minute is that?"

Come and play awhile.

1 comment:

hannah said...

Love this.
Words, language...has always come so easily to me.
And now, when there is this movement round the blogs to find a word that one will use for a year, summing up aspirations and attitude, now I find myself stumped.
Nothing seems to fit, no word or concept is good enough to keep to for a whole year.
I'm toying with 'aliquot'. Mostly because it trips off the tongue nicely and the concept is controversial to me: one part of a whole. Certainly not important enough to be a cog even.
Anyways, no need to publish this rubbish.
Just wanted to have a chat, and I should be in bed. But it is howling a storm out there and I fear for our roof.

I'm still out her, as you can tell :-)

Thanks for the warm wishes for 2012.
And I love your knitting display, and your self portrait photographs.