Wordsmith

Today.  It's so cold that the cars look like rocket ships, spitting out smoke from their tail pipes as they climb into the freezing nothingness of space.  Yesterday it was hot and limpid as I learned how to say goodbye.  Last week, I was in third grade, crying as I realized that I was just not smart enough.  Last month, I was crying because I had no words to use.

Now I have words.  Buckets and fistfuls and lifetimes of words.  I have English words and French words and Spanish words and Japanese words and Hawaiian words and happysadgladmad words.  That's a lot more than I had last month.  

Sometimes, I wonder what it will be like, to have a life full of words.  I wonder when I will finally get to the point where I eat words for breakfast, play with words on the swing set, dream about words as if they were my one true love.  I already know that my life is filling with words, from big words to little words to words that I will never speak.  I decided, somewhere between my first Aa Bb practicing to the time in 6th grade when I wrote my first book, that my life would always be full of words.  I love them.  They are everything to me.  They run through my head all day, narrate what I see in front of me as if I am reading an endless story.  "She smiled, thoughtfully.  You could see all of her hopes and dreams in that smile, a great wide door to her soul where her eyes are the windows."  Most of the time I don't even notice them.

It's a lonely profession, wordsmith, because words can be ornery little things, and when they are it can take hours to untangle them from the brambles of distraction and pull out the string of words that you need.  In that way, I was built to be a writer.  I've always been lonely, and usually I sort of like it.  It's only when I'm sitting in my health class or my study hall and everyone around me is talking and laughing and joking and I'm reading a book or wishing that I could write, when I choke on the urge to say, "I wanna be friends, too".  

I like the taste that you get in your mouth when it is bitterly cold outside.  It's like you have a well of freezing water bubbling up from your tongue, so that you're never thirsty and you always have that clear taste.  Water.  I mean, really, how do you describe the taste of water to anyone?  I feel like I'm trying to do that, when I write.  Describing water, or describing the look in a child's eyes, or the way a hand can fit perfectly in another.  It's something you have to know for yourself.

When will my words start being full of life, too?  A life full of words full of life.  When will I be able to write something down, hand it to someone, and when they read it they can taste frost just like I do?  They can come back to me and say, "Wow, that's the best thing I've ever read!  I've never thought about things that way before."  And I can be proud and say, "Thank you" like every gentleperson should, but secretly inside have that narrator saying "Watch her as she smiles.  This author wrote words that touch other people.  She's interacting with hundreds, thousands, millions!  Look at that twinge of pride smirking in the corner of her wrinkly, twisty mouth.  Look at the way she tries to hide it."  When will I be able to meet someone on the street, and say "I wrote a book!"  And they'll say "Oh yeah, I read that!" and then I won't have to be lonely anymore?

I Am A Mom.

Driving has opened up a whole new world to me. Especially the world of mothers.

I run errands, I chauffer, I watch my little baby Maren try to swim as I sit beside the sweltering YMCA pool on the bleachers with the other moms. I cook a lot more than I used to, I have money to fill up the gas tank of the black minivan, more than once I've felt like I'm raising the whole family, my parents and all. The only thing I have to remind me that I'm a kid is the seven hour school day. But soon, I'll lose even that shred of childhood.

I did New Year's resolutions last night, because I do things on my own schedule. It was me and my journal, and we had a fantastic time. Then I decided to have an anthem of the year, and put my iGroove on shuffle, crossing my fingers.

Well, the first song was Track Down This Murderer from Phantom of the Opera. I think Fate was just messing with me there. But the second, my Anthem for 2010, was Somewhere Over the Rainbow by IZ. You know, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. That big, loveable Hawaiian guy with a uke. I thought it was funny. Mostly because I had just put up my Hawaiian calendar, I wrote the month in Hawaiian when I headed my journal entry ('Ianuali!), I was listening to IZ, then I woke up practically in the middle night and wrote down 6 possible names for my future children. Their middle names were mostly either Hawaiian or Japanese. I used my Tongan bookmark after I read my scriptures.

Then today, at the YMCA, I spotted a young blond mother, maybe similar to what I'll look like in 10 years, with 2 of her children, watching her son in his swim class. And I identified with her, until I studied her children. Now I need to watch my words here, because they'll probably come out sounding really offensive. But I stopped identifying with her when I noticed that all of her children were blond and white like she was. I won't say I was repulsed by her children, because they were adorable. But our connection faded after that. I liked the Asian kids that walked in a few minutes later better than I did her kids.

I don't think I'll ever find white kids as cute as I once did. As my maternal instincts start to shift into gear, getting ready for the time when I'll have kids of my own, I shun the Caspers for a more friendly shade of brown. I love brown children. I will always love brown children. Whether they're Asian, Polynesian, Indian, African, Kiwi, or Native American (sorry if I've missed a brown demographic!) I will love them more than their white counterpart. It's a fact that I've come to accept, just like I've come to accept the yoke of growing up.

Don't worry. I know I'm racist. I'm OK with it. It's not overt, so I think that the rest of the population is OK with it, too.

So, in short, I am a mom. Mom-in-training. I think I'm just skipping the dating part in my head, the hard part, and skipping past the newly-wed portion, too, the learning how to live with a boy, and heading into children territory.

POST.BLOG. Have you heard the song Dreams by The Cranberries? That's my backup 2010 anthem. And I have an undying love for September by Earth, Wind, and Fire. It's one of those songs that I have to sing and dance along to, no matter how foul my mood is. It's also a great driving song.