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Maurice Sendak on Fresh Air – If this doesn't do it for you, I don't know what will

I drove downtown tonight to meet my friend for drinks and apps. On the way, I listened to what was, perhaps, the most moving interview I've ever heard. It was Terry Gross from Fresh Air chatting with 83-year-old Maurice Sendak.

He knows he's facing the end of his life, he's sad, he's athiest, yet he's full of wonder and love for the world.

If you have 20 minutes, go here and listen. It's so worth your time.

Since I saw you last

I've floated this household across a sea of corndogs and Ore-Ida Fast Food french fries, made cookies, constructed gingerbread houses, put up and taken down a dead fir tree from the corner of the living room, wrapped and opened presents, gone snow tubing at Snoqualmie pass, snapped at my children, hissed violently at J. for doing the same, turned 43, started reading a book on a Kindle, considered e-publishing my "quiet" YA manuscript Spectacle, begun planning a solo trip to China for next October, consulted with a plastic surgeon about my wrinkles then decided that I am a map and a storybook and for now will stay that way, eaten my weight in salted chocolate, got drunk on Jolly Roger Christmas Ale, and hid in the stairwell when I couldn't take being around people for another second.

It's been an eventful few weeks.

Constant motion

Perfect, oyster-translucent skin. Ribs that heave as you breathe. Your arms bent, legs taut, ready to run at me.

You all but puff steam from your nostrils. When you charge, you try to knock me over, but your eight-year-old body isn't substantial enough yet. You are angles and bones.

Your torso rams into mine and I purposely fall back. I know that in a few years you will be able to take me down, but for now you are still a small boy.

Earlier you looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror, arms up, studying your biceps. "Do I look strong?" you kept asking.

"Yes," I said, even though you just looked skinny and cute.

You are energy and exuberance embodied right now. You exhaust me. 

 

 

But you also give me so much more than you know.

Miscellany

Max got in trouble last week for writing "You are a dumbo," on a classmate's math sheet. The sheet belonged to Max's friend and Max was trying to be funny and make his friend laugh. On our way out of school, Max's teacher confronted him about it in the hallway. Claire and I watched Max's face turn crimson. He almost never gets in trouble. Once in first grade for crawling under his desk during Music. This time, I wished his teacher had pulled him aside and talked to him privately rather than shooting questions at him where anyone could hear.

***

Some kids at school are making fun of Claire and I can't quite figure out why. It has to do with a game and the others telling her she's not good at it so she shouldn't play. I want to go up to each of these children and flick them on their small heads. I won't, of course, but the meanness...it starts in first grade. Damn.

***

J. is working like crazy again. He hates it. I hate it. It negatively affects the family dynamic in a major way.

Every time his work consumes him like a licking, snapping house fire, I fear that everything we've built will disintegrate into a pile of fluffy ashes.

***

Claire was home sick two days last week. We had a decent time together. She stood with me, shivering and feverish in her thick winter coat while I strung lights on the two tiny shrubs in front of our house. I made her french toast, which we can never have when Max is home because of his egg allergy.

At the end of the second day Claire felt good enough to pluck tags from her school's giving tree and go with me to Target to buy the presents. We went a little crazy. Because when I saw slips of paper that said One pair of boy's black socks, size large and Sleeper for an 18-month-old and A pair of girl's leggings, size M, and Hygiene products for a 22-year-old woman, I couldn't not take them.

I had to stop reading the tags. I shoved them into my purse and dragged Claire out before I swiped them all.

***

More rejections on Spectacle. I feel like a massive loser. Still, that doesn't stop me from pathetically starting a new project while I continue to seek representation for my finished manuscripts. I need to be stopped before I start slapping them all up into Amazon's e-books site while frothing at the mouth and gulping chablis like water.

***

Max wrote a school report on Ireland. This was his chapter on Food and Drink: 

There are many foods and drinks that Ireland likes. Some foods Ireland likes are potatoes. Some drinks Ireland likes are beer. That is all the stuff Ireland likes.                  

And this, despite our shitty, shitty mornings, is why I like being a mom to these two goofballs.