Around Here

All the six and unders at church hang out on a wooden bench at the back of the church and eat cake.  They’re like a bunch of Norm’s, these kids.  PS- I did not make the girls’ dresses. I KNOW they’re pillow dresses.  I KNOW they are easily made. I KNOW that anyone with half a brain could sew them. I might have half a brain but it is programmed to shop.  It’s what I do.  I bought the dresses.

We’re ready for the 4th of July. Hadley cut out red and blue stars and hung them above the fireplace.  My parents, brother, and sister-in-law are coming over and the girls made flags for each of them.  I rolled them up and put them in a vase.  When Hadley saw this she was annoyed.  “How am I going to tell whose flags are whose?” Before, they were spread out all over the floor and I was just trying to help the child out.

Two weeks ago, I started reading The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus. You know, for fun and also for school.  I started it at a Starbucks close to American University.  I didn’t understand much of what I read and got frustrated so I took a walk and found myself staring at a beautiful turquoise chair in the window of Crate and Barrel.

I decided I’d embark on a little DIY project, but not before taking a picture of the H someone carved in one of our chairs.  I think I can narrow down who did it, but my goodness, when and why?  How did I not notice a child carving her initials into a chair?

Anyway, I painted and occupied myself with folly, as Erasmus did while he rode on a horse with people he didn’t want to make small talk with.  He thought of his friend Thomas More, whose last name is close to Moria, which is the Greek word for folly. “What’s so terrible if scholars take a little time off for play, especially if their foolery leads to something slightly more serious?”

I thought about keeping the carved H unpainted but decided against it, thinking that maybe it’s supposed to be a secret. A giggly act of foolishness that someday, might lead to a memory of a girl with a name that starts with H. Maybe she’ll remember sitting in the playroom with the sun shining in like it always did in the afternoons. Maybe she’ll remember the toys scattered all around her as they normally were during those serious times of play. Maybe she’ll come up with a story about that carved H: what she used to etch it into the wood, how she came up with the idea, whether her sister knew about it, what her mother was doing when it happened.

It sounds like a good story. I hope I get to hear it someday.