The sun is smiling. When I am inside with the blinds closed and the ceiling fans on and an ice pack on my head, that is. When I am outside, the sun is still smiling, in a I'm-coming-to-get-you scary movie kind of way. Everything sticks to everything. The insides of my knees stick together when I walk. My shirt sticks to my back. My scarf sticks to my head. And the kids stick to me.
I don't know what it is about the heat that makes me want to kill someone just with my eyes. When I have a day in which I did not mentally murder, I feel good about myself. And that's when I realize that in the winter, when it is raining and cold and damp, I have no drive, no motivation. So when I get up and write or play patiently with the girls or do the dishes, I feel like a high-powered business woman. Look at me go, I'm the energiser bunny. And THAT'S when I realize that I have no idea how much free will I really have, or how much I am simply driven by whims of my nature and changes in the general nature of the world around me.
Maybe today I slept well last night and ate well the day before and that's why I am a fountain of patience and folded all of the laundry.
Maybe someone told me that I look pretty, and that's why I told my husband what an amazing person he is.
Maybe Princess ate all her chicken, and that's why I am patient when she tantrums 15 minutes later.
Sometimes, it's even conscious. My father is doing so poorly, and the magazine rejected my story, I remind myself as I slump in my chair and decide to veg out with a book instead of something contructive, like re-writing the story or writing my father a letter.
Are we all just chain reactions to what is going on in our lives? I recently saw a book called Age 6: Loving and Defiant. And it went on to describe Princess to a T.
Is there a book out there called D: Age 30: Wherever the Winds will Take Her? (Or maybe D: Vampire Slayer. Oooh, pick that one.)
On the other hand, today I was in such a bad mood walking the girls to gan. It wa hot. The sun was laughing. I lost my lenses so I can't wear sunglasses and the world was shimmering through my teary eyes. Princess decided that she doesn't want to go to gan, and I heard her through my throbbing sinuses. I took a deep quavering breath, and said nothing, just kept walking past her gan to Coco-pop's gan.
In the end she decided to go after we went to Coco-pop's gan, and I'm not sure how calm I would have been had she decided to come home with me since I had so much planned for this morning not the least of which involved enjoying a bit of silence, but the point is, I was calm for that moment.
The point is, I think, not that I overcame the heat and didn't shoot bullets of fire from my eyes.
The point is, yes, maybe we are all chain reactions. But just like we are in the middle of one,we can also start one, can't we?
Because then as she turned to go to gan, she smiled and blew me a kiss. "I love you Ima," she said. Then skipped into gan.
It is over 100 degrees today, but I think that even had it been cold and rainy, my heart would have melted anyway.
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