Word Raccoon is feeling quiet.
She is contemplating the novel, since I told her this is the fall of the novel.
(Season, not demise. She narrowed her eyes.)

She’s not thrilled. But she’s considering complying. She wants only poetry. She has had summer nights of nothing but keyboard and lava. She does not want to give that up. We are negotiating. 

For now, she pads around the house with an air of uneasy grace, pawing at half-filled notebooks and letting her tail trail across unopened chapters.

She is thinking of the grab bag of compliments she keeps at hand for her favorite wildlife, but how she sometimes keeps her hand in her pocket because she does not want to scare off the squirrels.

She wants to acknowledge the admirable, restrained modesty in the well-connected squirrels.
The fierce, nuanced takes.
There are so many things she wants to say, but I put my hand on her sleeve.

“You can be a bit much, my friend,” I tell her.

She showed me a photo of a sign we saw today at a secondhand shop out of town, though we did not buy it. It read:

“I Was Not Made to Be Subtle.”

She tapped it with a claw and grinned.

“See?” she said. “Proof.”

She’s not wrong. (And I found it ironic that the letters were set in such subtle colors. Perhaps that’s another layer of irony.) 

My son might be one of her people.

He met Word Raccoon today over pancakes and bacon, maybe for the first time.

In the short amount of time it took his father to leave the room and return, WR had taken a line my son said and spun it into a song with three metaphors and a punk melody, though we spared him that.

“That should be a song,” I told him when he initially said that inspirational line.

He blinked and said, “I don’t know how it could be.”

We hashed it out for a minute or two, then I made a little motion with my arms, something that opened up the idea as we built on it.

“Oh,” he said. “You were already ten steps ahead of me, with metaphors and everything.”

Not me, exactly.
Word Raccoon had already heard the full chorus ten seconds after he said the line.

We’re not sorry our son met WR.
But we do know not everyone can handle her intensity.
Which is why she remained under wraps for so long.

WR is the kind of creature who thrifted metaphor before it was cool.
She wants to play in lyric. To bite the edges of simile.

She loves poetry but she’s not sure how to live in the shape of a novel again after all of this time.

Still, we’re trying.

We’re trying to give her space without flooding the room.
She doesn’t mean to overwhelm people, but she doesn’t sip. She pours.
She doesn’t whisper. She sings with her throat exposed.
And sometimes, people only bring thimbles. (Which is fine.)

So we measure.
We pause.
We try to decant a downpour into teaspoons.

We try not to waterboard anyone with our love and attention, while standing still long enough to see if they do want that, because maybe they do. (Obv. no one wants to be literally waterboarded, but some ppl like attention.)

We wonder if using a sprinkling can is nuanced or underdeveloped. (God, I guess I am a writer to the bone.) 

“Squirrels just want birdseed and nuts. You put it out and bada boom, bada bing, baby. Whatever,” says WR.  She’s a little cruel, a little crass, but her heart is right and strong. 

“I am too much i’ the sun,” Hamlet quipped. 

But today, my son didn’t flinch.
He didn’t turn away.
He caught the song mid-spin and grinned.

“You were already ten steps ahead.” I don’t think that’s quite true, but sweet of him. 

He’s a pretty great songwriter, too. 

He doesn’t know that’s a high compliment to WR.
And that she is trying to hold that truth gently in her paws.

Well, my son is covered in tattoos and wears a nose ring. Stands to reason he would appreciate someone a little unconventional. 

After all that, we didn’t talk more about it. My husband and I dropped Zack off at home and went to see Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. (Zack was invited, but let’s face it, it’s not his thing.) 

In all, WR really enjoyed the movie. It was well done. Lady Mary is her favorite character, naturally. Or one of them.

WR likes the historical drama, the sweeping gowns, the clever lines. The end of an era. 

She snorted at a few of the sentimental parts and a few moments she thought were setups that must’ve had sections left on the cutting room floor because they did not develop, but she was otherwise well-behaved.

Shockingly, she didn’t ask for Twizzlers. 

Sometimes, even Word Raccoon knows when to hush.

Now if only I could teach her the right time to speak.