Dear Reader,
Word Raccoon doesn’t know what to do with a “normal” day after so many not.
We’re listening to the Book Review podcast. They’re (finally) discussing Yesteryear. I have a few thoughts to add since I wrote about it last. I’d love a comedic version of the premise. Send a tradwife back to the past, however (dream, concussion, curse, I don’t care how), and let history refuse to cooperate with nostalgia. That WR and I would read the hell out of.
WR and I are irritated that it’s going to be so hot today. We have so many writing aspirations but right now we are trying to outsmart the sun. (Where is my little sunscreen to put around my computer?) At least we watered the flowers plenty early.
Let’s see…impressions/happenings of the past few days:
– We met three great-nephews for the first time and they are absolute darlings. We hope we will get to see them again much sooner!
– WR noticed that on the back of the card for condolence flowers sent to us were instructions for the colors to select. Our colors. How did he know?
– WR ordered a soft drink she doesn’t normally get, and it had to be shipped. To avoid a fee, WR ordered other staples, but evidently these were not all available from the same store because it looked like we had a taxi stand happening. One car pulled up with five items, took a photo, handed them over, and as it pulled out the second car pulled up. One item, she left. Not more than five minutes later, the last and final car came with the only item WR really wanted right then. (The jury’s still out on the beverage. Well, as you can imagine, WR has rejected it out of hand, but at a third of the price of her beloved you-know-what, she may just have to deal.)
WR is not proud of her carbon footprint in this scenario and will avoid this in the future.
Perhaps the coolest thing of the week was reconnecting with a younger cousin by marriage.
He sat with me at a family lunch and asked about my writing. When I mentioned my poetry, his face lit up and he said he had something he wanted to show me, but then he wasn’t sure he should, so I offered to let him read one of my poems.
WR did not do that to show off.
She did it to let him know she’s a safe place for writing.
He read it, asked more about it, and then I shared another one to run off any lingering hesitation he might have. This one was (I hope) humorous and irreverent, which was the update of me that I assumed he needed to feel entirely comfortable letting me read his work.
“You’re funny,” he said, and then he added that he guessed he had never really known me.
Our talk deepened, and we connected over both having lost our mothers and turning to writing to process it. He let me read his poem, and it was really good, and there were a couple of lines that were tattoo-worthy, and I told him how much I liked them.
It was beautiful to be sitting side by side with this young man I’ve known since he was a kid, passing our phones back and forth, knowing one another in a much deeper way. But also, WR went home and immediately ate all the snacks.
Why is being seen both wonderful and terrifying?
While I showed him my poetry for him, I’m the one who unexpectedly gained.
Okay, okay, enough. WR says she wants me to find that sunscreen or she wants sunglasses. She says I have written quite enough of this nonsense and she now wants a clown nose or something suitably unserious.
Hey, WR, you still have a pink boot vase on the porch. You good?
She’s good.
Drema
