two.
In gratitude.
Today: My Mirror
[i will preface this was something off topic. last post i totally cold-dissed my computer and sure enough 20 minutes after I hit send, my computer was pronounced dead. it’s gone. so my ‘30 day in a row of thanks’ business will be ‘30 days when i can get on another computer’. unfortunately, uncle sam went and took a bunch of money i was hoping for to buy the much lusted after ibook, so patience will be my practice as i await the funds for my new machine. hand jobs on the corner anyone? 20 bucks a pop].
* * *
Sula! If you don’t give me that right now I am going to get a better toy and I am never going to share it with you ever!
Sula! I am gonna smack you in the head with this bowl at your head if you don’t give me the blue marker!
Sula! I am going to throw you out the window if you don’t give me my book!
* * *
Mia. Those words you used with Sula today are not kind ways to talk to anybody. You can choose words that will make you feel better and won’t make Sula sad.
Long after the fact of the numerous five-year old volcanic expressions, I sat down to talk to her.
But mama, you talk like that.
And I look in her big brownish, greenish, yellowish round saucers for eyes with lashes that are illegally long. She looks right back at me, then glance away for a moment, knowing in some little kid way that what she is telling me is going to make me react somehow, she knows that what she is saying to me is big for me.
I don’t use those words, but evidently my sentiment falls through the holes in the sieve.
I do? I talk like that? I don’t say those things to you.
More quietly than she has been all day Yes mama. You talk mad last day and today. I am just talking mad like you.
* * *
And everyday I get to look into this mirror. Today it looked ugly, like beyond bad hair and acne. It was horrible mother day in my river valley. Yes. She is right. My level of stress has been so high and my voice reflects how totally and utterly unconscious I am about it. Sometimes a straight up look in the mirror is all I need.
I have been watching how my voice sounds, the energetic quality and the words I choose even when I am totally frustrated and want to throw every last one of the out the window, shedding, slobbering four-legged friends included.
Thank you mirror, for reminding me how to walk my talk.
