Lana Jae is getting her tonsils out Tuesday. She's going into second grade this fall and has redder hair than I do. I gave her a workbook to keep her busy and sedate and also a set of cards with rhyming words. I think the cards are beneath her dignity as a well-read second grader, but she has a little brother and ... they did rhyme. I like words. As well as she reads already, I guess I'm trying to mold her like me. On the cover it has bug and tug. I didn't open the box but maybe there are some better words.
Of course, words aren't better or worse. It is the precision with which we choose them that makes them so wonderful. I like looking at words that eye rhyme but don't ear rhyme. And vice versa. I want to know why I can do Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers in record time but cannot do seashells by any shore or rubber baby buggy bumpers. And you have probably gotten that email where all the words are misspelled but as long as they begin and end with the right letter, your eye can make sense of it. That's the same thing as typing words without thinking of individual letters. Well, I type 110 wpm, so I never think of the letters unless I am typing on my Barbie-sized phone.
I think I could publish a bunch of books after Daughter Rhymes with Laughter just with that formulaic title. I could do Demon Rhymes with Lemon and Maintain Rhymes with Mountain. But cupid really does rhyme with stupid, the only two words that do. I know, there are slant rhymes, like tepid, squalid, but no other upids that I can think of.
When I was a girl, around 6-8, before I came into the truth, my favorite holiday was Valentine's Day. Maybe if we had got more for Christmas, you know? But we were very poor. I just liked the whole idea of a day set aside to think about love. My kids (thankfully) think all holidays are pagan junk, so I did something right. They have never complained about not celebrating all that. They have in fact been glad we didn't have to "mess with" all that. Especially after moving here, to the US capital of Catholicism, have my daughters been amazed at the lengths people will go to in observance of the modern Saturnalia.
I have never believed a little cherub was flying around shooting people full of love potion. So many of my students, especially the girls, want to look into some boy's eyes and just "know" he's the one. One of them actually said in a journal last semester that Kim Kardashian was her idol and she wanted to fall in love and get married like her. I have to keep a straight face through all this.
There was this brother in Arkansas and we went out to Razorback Pizza a lot of times. We would drive separately and talk for hours. He always paid. And Brother Wisdom told me he was only friends with me and that is all it meant. I couldn't believe it. The brother was telling me things about his life which he said no one else had ever known. But somehow I managed to make a fool out of myself anyway.
I was doing everything for him. He came to my house a lot too, always with others, but if he wanted chocolate pie (his favorite) he got it. One night he was down in the dumps and I was broke but when he asked could he come over I said sure, and we rounded up the girls and another friend and I had a big bag of tomatoes I broiled covered with mozzarella cheese. We had this simple snack together and it was lovely.
He never tried to hold my hand even, (yeah Cherri Ann, there's your sign) and I thought he was being so considerate and godly. When he found out I thought he might be getting to know me with courtship in view, he said, "If I'd have wanted you, you'd have known it. I'd have no trouble making my needs known."
The brother before that was an octopus with eight hands I was always shoving off me till I finally got my point across that nothing was happening. And this is small and not wonderful, but while I found him a jerk in many ways, at least he wanted me. That was nice for a change.
After that, I got myself all laced up and reconciled to waiting on the new world for a partner. Then I moved to Windber and got stupid again. And not only stupid over a brother but his entire family. And when I got over being stupid, after some time passed, his father told me that he wanted us to all be friends and hang out like we used to (because for a time I needed some distance to heal) but he didn't want me too take any attention as encouragement. He said they had discussed this situation as a family on a long vacation drive.
Like I didn't get the message the first time? Like, I know I'm fat and plain, but I sure ain't stupid ya'll. And I didn't know what to do about that remark, did not like being the problem they needed to deal with to maintain congregational peace.
The thing is, if the entire family went on a campaign to try and get me now, it wouldn't work. Doesn't that presume that I have no say in the matter? Is this brother so perfect that I'm still praying for a chance? I don't think so. And I'm not going to hurt like that again, so I told them to be friendly all they want, that no matter what they decided, that me, myself and I decided the answer was no.
They haven't had much to say. Maybe I was mean. Maybe they can't believe I can move on. I didn't believe it either for awhile, but finally, I am resolved in my heart again.
Here's a joke someone emailed me a few years ago. I'll tell it as well as I can remember.
There is a new wife store for brothers. You show up and say you are looking for a wife, and the brother in charge of the store says okay, you can go in, and you can shop all you want, but each time you leave a floor to go to the next one up, you can never come back down. Simple. So this brother goes shopping and the first floor advertises sisters who are baptized regular publishers. The brother thinks that sounds nice, but the store is six floors so he declines to shop there and moves up to the second floor.
Now on that floor, the sisters are advertised as baptized pioneers who can cook which sounds even better, but if that floor was so much better, and there are six floors, wouldn't it be okay to go up one more floor?
So, on the third floor, the brother reads a sign advertising baptized pioneers who can cook, play a musical instrument, and are pretty. Song of Solomon, play for me. But there are three more floors!
The sign on the fourth floor states that the sisters on this floor are baptized pioneers who are pretty, can cook and play a musical instrument, and have wonderful part time jobs that pay enough for the sister to be able to support them both in the ministry.
The brother has to go to the fifth floor just to see what else could sweeten the deal and the fifth floor advertises BEAUTIFUL pioneers who cook, clean, are thrifty and have the same great job and also fix their own cars!
Still, our brother decides to go to the sixth floor to finally select his bride-to-be. When he gets there, the sign reads: Brother, you have reached the Sixth Floor. Since you seem to be set on getting a perfect wife, you will have to come back in the new world. Perfect wives deserve perfect husbands. Thank you for shopping and have a nice day! and the door leads straight back out to the elevator which goes straight down to the exit.
The problem with being single and trying to find someone is every time it doesn't happen, you come face to face with the knowledge that you weren't good enough somehow. Sometimes it is like words. It isn't that I'm a lesser word and someone else is a better word. I'm just not precisely the right word. And I have let down a few brothers and it is difficult to do. It's just that sometimes you stand up to sing the song at the end of the meeting and you look at all the couples, all the sisters who were good enough somehow, and you think why am I not good enough?
I got tired of baking pies and writing poems and burning cds and still not being good enough. At least this way I'm not giving my time away. There is a movie that came out last fall called "For Colored Girls" and it is based on a poem that I love so I had to go see it. There is a line in that movie where women have to fill in the blank in this sentence: My love is too _________ to be thrown back in my face.
Instantly, the word that fills up my sentence popped in my head. My love is too generous to be thrown back in my face.
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