I’ve realized today that when I finish attending a class, I’m all geeked up about what was discussed or covered. Then when I get back to my office, I only want to work on that stuff!
Today was a workshop with James Schirmer (who was teaching a first-year writing course when the Flint water crisis broke). I already had ideas for how to incorporate the Common Read (What the Eyes Don’t See) into the curriculum, and I have even more now. So, all I want to do is work on the assignments and activities for my WRIT 1110 course, but I have so much other stuff I need to do first. This does not help with my procrastination!
This seemed like a more laid-back week. Peer review and conferences with my students. Less reading for my own classes for next week. I was even able to get to the gym today and run 6.2 miles! Dare I tempt fate and say that I feel like I found a balance this week?
I might be pushing it with that. After all, I still have a lot to do. Those WRIT Journal submissions aren’t going to review themselves. But overall, I didn’t feel as stressed this week as the first few weeks. Conferences went well with my students. I also had them do an anonymous survey. Most of them hated writing at the beginning of the semester. The consensus on the survey is that they are liking my class, and writing may not be so bad after all. Many of them are so happy to not have to write in the 5 paragraph model anymore. I’m so happy to not have to grade it! Most of them said they wanted to play it safe with the first project and just write it as an essay. I get that. They want to get their feet wet first before jumping straight in to a new way of writing. But, a few were excited to explore new ways of writing. One wrote a song, one is doing Instagram posts, another is making a video. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the semester to see how many of the others will start to branch out.
What is even happening at this point? My mind is a whirlwind of trying to make the rest of the schedule for my class and trying to keep up with my own work. This is basically me right now. I can’t even think of anything constructive to say.
Ok. Settling
in. I introduced the first project in my composition class. A literacy
narrative. I was very excited to tell them that they did not have to write this
project in that awful 5 paragraph essay kind of way. I gave them examples of
all the different ways they could tell their literacy story. I fear they may
have been overwhelmed by this because many of them are still choosing to write
it as an essay, instead of making a video or a series of Instagram pictures. This
is fine, of course. I can understand they will want to stick with what they know.
They
responded well to building their own rubric for this first project. They were
pretty quiet up until that point, though, which is always a worry. Are they
getting it? Is this stuff sinking in? Are they just tired because class is at
the butt crack of dawn?
I had them “grade” the sample literacy narratives using the rubric they came up with, and they ripped those things apart! I heard things like “this isn’t organized very well” and “she spelled some words wrong; we should take points off for that.” I’m still floored that they wanted spelling weighted so heavily on their own projects. Next week, they learn how to peer review each other’s work. I don’t think they’ll be so brutal with each other, though. It’s so much easier to rip someone’s writing to shreds when that person isn’t going to be sitting next to you for the next 12 weeks.
This has all happened before. And this will all happen again. -Caprica Six, Battlestar Gallactica
AHHHHHHH!!!! What a crazy week! My first week of trying to balance teaching a composition class AND taking my own classes in my PhD program. I think my composition class went well. I was able to do a lot more community building than in the past which was nice. Fingers crossed that it means my students will be more comfortable to speak up in class this semester.
Oh my. What a difference already reading this book!
I’ve finished Part I (about the first 87 pages). I normally don’t take this long to read a book, but I want to really take it in. And I have a job and other sorts of stuff that get in the way. Hooray for adulting!
For those who don’t know what this book is about, here’s a brief introduction. 1984 was written by George Orwell. Orwell was an amazing satirist. Really one of the best ever, and this book is a great satire of totalitarianism. It was published in 1949, and it’s considered the ultimate classic dystopian story. The dystopian on which all other dystopians are based.
Society in 1984 is controlled by an authoritarian regime run by the political party known as INGSOC (or English Socialism). Government is split between the four ministries: Ministry of Truth (responsible for news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts), Ministry of Peace (deals with war), Ministry of Love (maintains law and order), and Ministry of Plenty (responsible for economic affairs). And of course, there’s Big Brother. Big Brother is the perceived ruler. And Big Brother Is Watching You. All the time. Literally. From telescreens, to Thought Police, to spying neighbors and co-workers. The only reason for marriage and sex is to have children who will serve the Party. Children who will then turn on their own parents with no remorse. The only escape from this hell is death.
Our main character is Winston Smith. He lives in London in the territory of Oceania and under the rule of Big Brother. Newspeak is the official language. Although most people still speak Standard English, the goal is to have everyone speaking Newspeak by the year 2050. Newspeak begets ideas like doublethink and doublespeak. You may think you know what a word means, but it really means something else. In other words, you know that when someone says untrue things, they’re lying, right? Nope, it means they’re giving you “alternative facts.” Now, the purpose of Newspeak is, of course, to “make all other modes of thought impossible.” (246). Because who needs individual thought, right? Individual thought might lead to things like hope for a better life, and we all know that rebellions are built on hope. Big Brother would say a big Nope! to that nonsense. And, just like that, you no longer exist. And in Big Brother world, they’ll make it so you never existed.
Ok, so let’s really get into this, shall we? I feel the need to warn you though that I go a bit quote crazy here (but, there are just so many good ones!) So, the first thing I noticed this time around is how violent Winston’s thoughts are toward women. I mean, yikes! Particularly toward the girl with thick dark hair.
Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason…He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones…It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy. (16)
Bitter much, Winston? And it just continues…
Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity. (16)
Holy crap on a cracker, dude! Talk about male sexual entitlement. How dare the young and pretty girls not give you the attention you believe you are entitled to. How dare they be chaste. How dare the dark-haired girl live her oppressed, sexless life without any consideration for what you may be feeling. And we’re only 16 pages in when we get this. I mean, damn.
Now, we can argue that Winston isn’t really like this, and that he’s merely caught up in the Two Minutes Hate. And the way Orwell describes the mob mentality that takes hold of the crowd; can we really fault him for his vicious thoughts? After all, everyone is worked into a violent frenzy.
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. (16)
Reading this when I was 13 years old, I couldn’t picture this happening. I was a kid, it was the 80s, and a story like this was just a story. There was no way people could really behave this way, and there was no way society would allow it, let alone foster it. (I led a bit of a sheltered life back then). Reading it now, however, it’s frightening how much this isn’t just a story. We see this type of hysteria all the time. And it’s something that’s always existed. Mob or herd mentality isn’t a new concept. People lose their self-awareness and gain anonymity. They feel less or no guilt at all because everyone else was doing the same thing. And people often forget their own behavior during these moments because they aren’t paying attention to it at the time. A study from 2014 using neural imaging suggests our brains may be wired to respond this way. [1] Scary stuff, right?
So, do we excuse Winston’s thoughts and behavior due to mob mentality? Can he even help it? Does the human brain work against us in these instances and cause us to behave contrary to our morals? Or is it just an excuse for him to act like an ass? A way he can excuse it all by saying “oh, I normally wouldn’t behave or think that way. I just got caught up in it all. It can’t be helped.”
Quite the conundrum, eh? Winston is a complex character. And, as with most things, there is no easy answer. He’s not one of the characters who seemingly accepts it all. He calls bullshit a few times. He takes great risks by breaking the laws. Laws that make things like desire, sex, and even having the wrong facial expression punishable offenses. He hides in an alcove in his apartment out of view of his telescreen. He not only purchases a diary, but actually writes in it. Going so far as to write things like “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” over and over. He takes a tremendous risk by questioning the old man in the pub about the old days before Ingsoc. Pretty gutsy of him. He knows he’ll be caught, tortured, and killed. It’s a certainty, at this point. But, he continues to take these risks. Go big or go home, I guess.
Questioning what’s true is relatively easy for him given his job. He works at the Ministry of Truth and changes what was previously published in the news to match current events. That way Big Brother is always right. In today’s terms, he creates fake news. “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting” (32). One of the biggest mysteries for him is why? Why does the Party want to perpetually change that past? What is their motivation? Because “if the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened –that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death” (32). But, “it was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory” (32).
And Winston does question his memories. He’s changed the past so much, he really can’t be sure of what is true. He often thinks himself a lunatic and describes how easy it would be for Big Brother to convince everyone that 2 + 2 = 5. “And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable?” (69).
Holy gaslighting, Batman! Again, when I was a kid, I didn’t think too much of this. I found these ideas wildly fantastic! I didn’t think we could ever live in a society that would manipulate news and history to suit the needs of the government or to control the masses. Yeeeaaah.
Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist who believes the moon landing is fake or anything. But, I am someone who grew up in a time when certain parts of our history were reduced to only a few paragraphs in history books, or they weren’t there at all. Things like slavery and WWII Japanese internment camps. I’m also someone who grew up during the AIDS epidemic and the beginning of the war on drugs. I’ve seen over the years how our government and media have used these things to control, to manipulate, and to foster certain ideologies. Ideologies that today make me think it’s not so far off to believe that many could be convinced that 2 + 2 =5. “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command” (69). How many of our politicians demand this every day? And how many people actually do it? Far too many, if you ask me. I saw something once that said, “1984 was not meant to be an instruction manual.” And that’s what makes reading it now so unsettling. It’s difficult to find satirical humor when it hits so close to home.
Part I ends, much like how it began, with a confused and paranoid Winston. He wonders if Inner Party member O’Brien shares his views. He’s paranoid the girl with the dark hair is a member of the Thought Police and is following him. He’s unsure if Mr. Charrington, the owner of the junk shop where he bought the diary, can be trusted. But he vows to return to buy more “beautiful scraps of rubbish,” even though he knows it will be a great risk. Despite his violent thoughts, I like Winston. I feel sorry for him. I love complex characters who are filled to the brim with inner turmoil. And Winston fits that perfectly.
Join me next time, if you dare, as I delve into Part II!
UPDATE: I couldn’t bring myself to blog about the rest of the book. It was honestly too frakking depressing!
Yes, that’s my copy of The Road. Yes, I tab my books. Don’t judge me.
Often, and by often I mean all of the time, I read books as an escape. I can dive into a different world to escape my own for whatever reason. Stress, boredom, the people who live in my house are being too loud, you know, whatever. Dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories have always been a favorite of mine. Reading about other worlds that are far more messed up than your own makes you think, well crap, things could always be worse, right?
Weird things happen when you re-read a book, but do so at a different point in your life. It’s fascinating how what’s going on around you in the real world can have an effect on how you respond to a work of fiction. I first read The Road back in the late 2000s. I can’t remember the exact year. I just remember I was a lawyer back then. A lawyer who hated being a lawyer. And I’m pretty sure Obama was president. What I do remember is that I loved the book. It’s dark, a bit depressing, and very much fits into that “things could always be worse” line of thinking.
So let’s get into it, shall we?
The Road is the story of a father and son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic America. They’re making their way south to the ocean because they will not survive another winter where they are. They trudge along the road pushing a shopping cart that holds all of their worldly possessions. They wear makeshift masks to avoid breathing in the “grainy air.”
We don’t know what event created this gray and ash covered world, but that’s ok. We don’t really need that information. Based on McCarthy’s descriptions, we can assume it was probably a nuclear war. Everything is burnt, ashy, gray. No animals, no fruit hanging from trees, no green, no color at all, just a desolate land. Even the sunrise and sunset are described as bleak and gray. Through flashbacks, we learn the boy was born into this world a few nights after the incident that caused it. We learn the mother is dead, but I won’t say how because spoilers. The man coughs up blood, so we know he’s dying. He also wrestles with the idea of possibly having to kill his son if things get too bad. And the boy knows how to do it himself if the need arises.
The biggest worry for them is food. It’s usually a “well that’s convenient” kind of moment when they do find food/water/shelter because they’re on the brink of death, but it works. The scarcity of food or anything that might be able to produce it has resulted in cannibals wandering the road. But they don’t encounter the cannibals a lot which, depending on what you’re looking for in the story, may be a good or bad thing. If you’re looking for a lot of action and fighting, then you will be disappointed. This is not that book. At all. It is literally about a man and a boy walking down a desolate road in search of food and temporary shelter. They don’t encounter much because there just isn’t much there. The world is dead. Depressing, right? Don’t get me wrong though there are some moments of cheerfulness, but they are few and far between. McCarthy has said that this book is a love story to his son. He wanted to write a story about a man and his son and their relationship in this type of setting. So, that’s what you get. Kind of. I can’t imagine there are too many bonding opportunities at the end of the world, so it works out to being a strange sort of relationship.
McCarthy’s writing itself is simplistic and raw. There are no chapters, barely any punctuation, no dialogue tags. With only 2 characters, no tags isn’t that big of a deal. You can usually work out who is talking. And there isn’t much in the way of conversation anyway. It usually consists of talking about the good guys and bad guys, and the son wondering if they are the good ones. I mean what else is there to really talk about in a dead world? The characters are nameless except Ely, but he’s probably lying about his name. And he’s only in the story for about 10 pages. This bare-bones writing style is why I think I liked this book so much. Removing the basic conventions of writing fits perfectly with a setting devoid of life and color. It’s brilliant that way.
I read this book again this year because I was teaching it to my students. Clearly, things have changed since my first reading. I’m now a happy English professor instead of a miserable attorney. And our political environment, well, that’s most definitely changed. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all political here, but it does need saying that where we are right now had a profound effect on my reading of this book again. The likelihood of the events of the book becoming a reality are much higher today than they were when I first read it. So yeah, I felt robbed of the “well at least things aren’t that bad” thinking because holy crap on a cracker, things could very easily be that bad.
Of the four books I had my students read this year, this was their least favorite. They found it to be too dark and depressing. They were always expecting something more to happen, for there to be more to the story. And there just isn’t. Perhaps it was unfair to put it up against books that I knew they would love (Ready Player One being one of them), but I thought it would be a great contrast. And it was. And they did appreciate McCarthy’s writing style and how well it fit with the story which was good. So, what didn’t they like?
First, the man did some really stupid things. For someone who was so desperate to protect his son and avoid other people at all costs, he does some silly and unpredictable things that would’ve easily attracted the attention of the bad guys. Shooting off a flare gun, building a huge fire in a fireplace, those sorts of things. There was some debate that he shot the flare gun to amuse his son, and in a world like that, you take entertainment where you can get it. But in the end, there was a general consensus that it was just a dumb thing to do when the ultimate goal is to not die.
Second, there was the over-description of the world at times. Because how many different ways can you describe things as dead and gray and ashy? Not many, apparently. You get a clear picture of what this world looks and feels like pretty early on in the book, so when he’s still describing it half way through the book, it just feels like overkill.
And third, it was a bit too close to being a possible reality. And that made it far more depressing than was probably intended.
So, even though they didn’t like it, we still had a lot of good discussions about the book. And that’s always a plus.
Now, would I recommend this book to others? If you are the type of person who can easily separate real life and that of fiction, then go for it. It is a good book. But, I’ve discovered over the years that very few avid readers can make that separation. So, if you’re worried about our possible annihilation from nuclear war at the moment, maybe wait a bit before picking this one up.
Excuse me as I clear out some cobwebs and dust here. There. Ok.
So, I started this blog this year with the hopes that it would become a much bigger thing than it did. But like a lot of other stuff, it crashed and burned. Why? Because most of the time, I couldn’t put into words what was going on around me. It wasn’t just all of the celebrity deaths, or the utter shit show of our presidential election. There were some personal things too. And when the world seems to be collapsing in on itself outside the walls of my home, anything good tends to be overshadowed by the bad. And that fucking sucks. I mean, Christmas wasn’t even as enjoyable as in years past. And I’m a total nutjob when it comes to Christmas (like the type of nutjob who wants to put up the tree on November 1st). But by the time it got here, I was just so done with this year that for the first time, Christmas couldn’t even save it.
“Does anyone feel like they’ve been Keyser Soze’d?”
Because wow. I mean, really. Just wow. Are there any other words that can describe this year? Oh, I know. Horrifying, appalling, catastrophic, or pretty much any other word that falls under these in the thesaurus. It was so bad that an awesome friend of mine dubbed it The Year That Shall Not Be Named (a moniker which I promptly stole and have been using ad nauseam – thanks Rita!) I mean, Azealia Banks revealed yesterday that she’s been sacrificing chickens in a closet in her home for the past 3 years, and my reaction was basically “yep, that seems about right.” No shock, no “OMG! Can you believe that?” because of course I can believe it. It’s 2016, and it will be bizarre and “WTF?” until the bitter fucking end.
Seriously
Not that all of this year was bad. There were some good parts. I started a new career as an English professor, and I got a real cash money paying job in said career. Two jobs, in fact. And then they completely monopolized all of my time. Like literally all of it. Preparing lectures and grading papers until 2 or 3 in the morning was not uncommon. But teaching British Literature renewed my love for writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe, and Swift. It renewed my love for literature, in general. A love that I wasn’t even aware I had lost. It also renewed my love of writing. Something I will try to do more of in 2017. I won’t make it a resolution because that’s a guarantee that I won’t do it. So I’m just going to say, I’ll try.
This next semester shouldn’t be as time consuming (I hope). I will still have a shit ton of papers to grade, but I’m only at one school now, and I’ve already taught one of the classes. I’ve got a better handle on what to do, and I’ve had more than two weeks to prepare for these classes. I’m really looking forward to teaching some of my favorite books too. The Road, Station Eleven, Wool, and Ready Player One. Some brilliant dystopian themed novels that perfectly reflect where we are as a society, but hopefully don’t foreshadow our actual future.
But even with the good, am I happy this year is coming to a close? Abso-fucking-lutely. Am I worried about what next year will bring? You bet your sweet ass I am.
But, I will go forth into the murky future with my new mantra of “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.” (Because Chirrut Imwe is awesome!)
And also this, so much this…
(Did you really expect anything else from me? I am a nerd, after all.)
It seems fitting that I launched this blog with a post about Prince’s death, and the last post of the year is about the death of 2016. So, all I can really say at this point is good riddance. You, Year That Shall Not Be Named, are an asshole. And unlike so many of the amazing people you stole from us, you will not be missed.
Our household has been experiencing a fly invasion in the last week or so. And it’s not just a few flies here and there. I’m talking like Amityville Horror style infestation. We can’t figure out where they’re coming from and every time we kill 1 or 4, another 4,000 appear. There are so many that I’ve had to keep the flyswatter on the floor next to me. Ew! Who wants to do that?! I tweeted about this plague and the next day my sister said they had the same problem at their house. Weird, right?
Anyway, these devils are big and noisy and as the night goes on, they become very slow. It makes them easy to kill, but it’s creepy as hell. Imagine if you will, you’re seated in your living room, just relaxing, maybe playing some Skyrim, when you hear it. The buzzing. It gets closer and closer, but you can’t tell where it’s coming from. Then suddenly you’re dive-bombed by 4 or 5 or 20 fearless, kamikaze flies. You flail your arms about to defend yourself as the person on the other side of the room questions your sanity. It’s quite possibly the most irritating thing ever.
The interwebs told me they may be cluster flies. This type of fly hatches underground, burrows into worms, and feeds off of them as it develops.
Yeah. Gross. In the spring and over the summer months, they emerge from the ground as adults. They get super active on warmer days and crawl out of attics and exhaust fans and into your house, stupidly thinking they’re going outside. Morons. But this helps explain the invading hoard.
So as I was sitting at the dining room table the other night doing some computing, I noticed one of these things slowly crawling across the table. I had nothing within reach to squash it because I left the flyswatter in the other room. Plus I wasn’t too keen on smashing it on the table anyway. Because gross. Instead, I carefully picked up my 7-11 Thor Slurpee cup (yes, I’m still using a plastic Slurpee cup from 5 years ago, don’t judge me) and I placed it over top of the fly. Now, here’s the thing about this cup. It doesn’t have a flat bottom. It’s got some space underneath it. Not a lot, but some. So the fly wasn’t crushed to death. At the time, I didn’t care. I thought, “Ha, mutha fucka! I got your ass now!” When I heard it buzzing, I didn’t think much of it. I literally said “bye, Felicia” and went up to bed.
The following morning, I lifted the cup and, of course, the fly was dead. But something weird happened as I sat there staring at its lifeless corpse. This odd sensation welled up inside me. Uh, what was going on? Was that…emotion? Was I really feeling emotion for this dead fly? This foul, poop eating, vomiting everywhere it lands, fly!? No, no, I’m fine, this is totally fine, really.
OH, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY! THE GUILT! THE SHAME! OH, THE HUMANITY! WHAT HAVE I DONE?
“I’ll tell you what you’ve done,” my brain said. “You tortured that poor fly. You caused its last moments on earth to be filled with claustrophobic terror. You entombed him!”
What kind of person am I? What if he was crawling across the table to say hi? What if he just wanted to make a new friend? To break down the barrier between insect and human?! And what did I do in response? No friendly outreach. No welcome mat. No “hey little guy, how are you tonight?” No! I buried him alive that’s what I did! I downright Cask of Amontillado’d that poor fly!
My mind flooded with images of the poor thing trapped and desperate. His tiny vomit covered front legs clawing at the underside of the cup. Buzzing for help that would never come. Oh the buzzing. It haunted me now like a tell-tale heart. I apologized to him as his soulless frame lay before me. I apologized to his family. To his friends. I felt horrible. I carefully picked up his body with a tissue and laid it gently in the trash. I apologized again. It was the least I could do. Sigh.
So I guess the moral of this story, if there is one, is to kill the flies quickly. No more trapping them. Just smack the life out of them with the flyswatter. One solid whack should do it. They’ll never even know it’s coming. Yep, that’s the solution.
Come on, did you really think I was going to become the patron saint of flies or something?
Not a chance. They’re still disgusting creatures, after all. I’ll just be more like Michonne in my killing sprees.
Yeah, definitely Michonne. I’ll be channeling her over the next few days. It’s supposed to be hotter than the sun itself, so you know damn well those little bastards are going to creep their way inside. But not to worry, I’ll make their deaths quick and painless. My torturing days are done.
And on that note, peace, love, and all that good stuff! (except to the flies in my house)
I’m a bit late with this week’s post. Sorry about that. My excuse? This past week has been graduation week for my oldest. And by graduation week, I mean just that. An entire week of endless fancy-pants events. And she hasn’t even graduated yet. That’s tomorrow. And at this point, we’re all like “omg can we just get this over with already!”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful for the great education she got from this school. And I’m not begrudging Catholic schools. I’m just in the thick of it all at the moment and I’m so frakking tired! I graduated from a public school and all we had to do was show up for the graduation ceremony. There was no senior showcase, no May Crowning, no baccalaureate, no luncheons. We simply graduated.
It’s not like I didn’t know we’d have to do all of this either. They didn’t spring it on us last minute. I’ve known for four years this was coming. I just feel like I was completely unprepared for the cloud of urgency that’s been lurking overhead all week. It’s been an overwhelming sense of rush here, rush there, rush, RUSH, RUSH EVERYWHERE. And I’m exhausted.
But it’s almost over and I’m sure one day we’ll look back at this week with fondness. Right? Anyway, on to this week’s post.
And now the next installment of Coffee with Laura Leigh:
If you’ve ever been around any kids for any amount of time, you know they will say the weirdest, most random things. Things that will throw a normal conversation completely askew. Things that leave you wondering how such a little brain with so little experience on this earth could manufacture what just escaped their mouth. Things that make you question the world, question your parenting, even question life itself.
And for some reason, this phenomenon always seems to manifest itself during car rides. I’m not sure why. Maybe because there isn’t much to do while harnessed in the back seat but to look out into the world and question everything you see.
The most recent of these conversations for me occurred on a gray, damp morning in early May.
I dragged my two girls from their warm slumbers for what seemed like the millionth time this school year. We were automatons at this point, moving through the getting-ready-routine and grunting monosyllabically toward one another. It was a morning cloned from any number of the ones before it. Then dampness besieged us when we walked out the door. We recoiled from it like vampires from sunlight as we maneuvered our way around puddles to the safety of the Jeep. Doors unlocked, bodies in seats, “oh no, my breakfast” piped the little one.
Dammit.
Trudge back through the mist and into the house. Shoes off to avoid getting water on the kitchen floor. Grab breakfast bar. Back out to the offensive outdoors and into the Jeep. I was so done with this off-to-school routine. The sweet, warm frothiness of a caramel latte called to me and as soon as I got these two to their respective places, I could be united with it. It was all that kept me going.
One child was off to take her last exams as a high school student, the other to one of her remaining days of kindergarten. The Jeep, already knowing her way, carried us along on our morning journey. As we pulled up to a stoplight, it began.
“What’s that?” asked the little one. I glanced in the direction her tiny finger was pointed. Next to us was an older model pick-up truck with an old-time quasi-camper cap. Baby blue paint peaked out from underneath an armor of bumper stickers that told us the elderly man driving used to be in the Army. Airborne infantry to be exact.
“It’s a truck with a cap. He can use it for camping or to carry bigger stuff he doesn’t want to get wet,” I responded.
“Like a dead body,” she stated in her usual pragmatic manner.
Silence befell the inside of the Jeep as Taylor Swift and her wildest dreams faded into the distance. The world outside slowed its pace. The oldest and I exchanged a look, both of us attempting to grasp how the conversation escalated to that level so quickly. My mind reeled. Images of my child being a possible budding serial killer began to take shape. I tried to rationalize it by telling myself “hey, she is your kid. Her mind may go to those dark places just like yours always has. And you didn’t turn out to be a serial killer. So, it’s ok.”
The oldest, in a feeble attempt to change the subject, said, “I feel like he would be a Trump supporter.” She had no basis for the statement. Maybe she just wanted to distract her little sister from thoughts of dead bodies and she knew that would do it.
“Yeah. A Trump supporter who may or may not have a dead body in the back of his truck,” I quipped.
“He’s a cute old man! He does not like Trump!” yelled the youngling from her perch in the back seat. She was not a fan of Mr. Trump. She viewed him as a mean bully, and saying someone might be a supporter of his was probably the biggest insult one could make in her mind.
The light turned green and we pulled away from the cute old Army man. No one spoke as we headed in a different direction. Voices on the radio slowly came back into existence. At some point the drizzle outside had diminished and the Jeep’s wipers now farted across the windshield. How long had that ruckus been going on? As we caught up with the rest of the world, my mind fixated on one thought. Why did she say a dead body?
“Um, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course, mama,” she answered in her little Minnie Mouse voice.
“Why did your mind go straight to a dead body when asking about that truck?”
“Oh, well uh, because I thought it was one of those body holders. The ones that take the body to the church.”
Holy crap.
“Do you mean a hearse?” the oldest asked with obvious relief.
“Yes.”
“Oh thank god!” I cried out.
My child was not a future serial killer. I scolded my brain silently for going to that dark and cynical place. There was a very logical reason for her saying a dead body. No deviant or warped thought process involved. It was simply the mind of a six-year old attempting to associate a new thing to something she had seen before.
The rest of our drive continued without incident. I dropped off the oldest for her exams and proceeded to the youngling’s school. As we sat in the parking lot and waited to go inside, she clambered up to the front seat. The grayness of the morning persisted outside, but she ignored it. She spread her collection of tiny plastic toys across the dash with the carefulness and precision of a watchmaker. She had just begun to play when I said, “ok, time to go in.”
Her shoulders sank in defeat. She lifted her head to the sky, closed her eyes and yelled “Ugh! You’re killing me, bro!” Thus revealing one of the true struggles of a six year old.
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