Day 18: What I Would Change; What I Wouldn’t

posted January 11, 2018
future bathroom to the left, bedroom in back of kitchenette to the right

9 y.o. got as far as the front door of school today and then proceeded to retch. I fetched him home forthwith. He has been reading Harry Potter 4 and doing various homework assignments that involve protractors and figuring out the difference between acute and obtuse angles. Because he had returned the protractor to school, and because our household has no protractor, I printed out a paper one, and we have been using that. It is strangely soothing to coach 4th grade math problems, and even more to sit with my son while he reads. He is such a dear little soul. I am going to miss his presence when he gets well. And I am desperate for him to get well.

I love the word “protractor,” can you tell?

A number of readers of my last post commented that he should get a chest X-ray, so back he went to the doc, with his father, while I took 11-year-old to violin lesson. X-ray revealed normal lungs. So why is he barfing so much?

He is not barfing now. He is sitting still and reading some ELA assignment his fabulous teacher gave him. He is asking me for help. We discuss. I do not lead him on, but try to ask the right questions. He gets it. The look on his face when I let him know he got it right was worth all four days of lost work. Now I want to be a home-schooling mom, except that I would be terrible at that.

The walls are higher on Little Blue. The entire bathroom and bedroom and petit kitchen are framed out, and there are parallel boards across the roof of the first floor. I stood in the spot where I will be teaching once this house is built and almost wept. This is real.

View of the backyard from the new bedroom.

I have been thinking about songs. I know what I need to write, and I just don’t know if I can do it. That is probably why I feel stuck. Tomorrow, I will have a houseful of retreatants for my MLK retreat. (Sick son will be quarantined.) I have to have the humility to write a bunch of bad songs, in front of people, before the good one comes out. That’s what I teach, and I have to put my money where my mouth is. But my voice isn’t in great shape, as I have not been getting to Amherst to see my amazing octogenarian voice teacher Lois Smith. She will scold me when I finally get to her (after Martin Luther King, Jr day–a day I will be spending with my Local Chorus and my friends Ousmane and Melissa Power-Greene’s amazing MLK, Jr. Children’s Celebration at Jackson Street School from 10:30-12:30. You should come. It will cure what ails you, I promise. But it won’t cure my ow-y voice.) Anyway, when my voice hurts, it’s not that fun to write songs.

If I were God, here are some things that would change:

-no coughing. What a bad system.
-voices wouldn’t need warming up and stretching and vocalizing all the damn time in order to keep them sounding good.
-no working out. See above. Bodies would just stay in shape even when their owners skip their workouts to care for their sick kids.
-little barns in people’s backyards wouldn’t cost so much to build
-there would definitely be no cancer. NONE. And especially not for people who’ve had it once.
-people with no experience governing would not get elected president, unless they are Oprah.
-people would have to learn this song and sing it.

Did you see Ani in that video????

Also, how much do I love that the women at the Golden Globes all wore black, and some of them even allowed themselves to forgo the fake eyelashes???? Not that I have anything against fake eyelashes. I plan to get some STAT, but that is another story.

In case you missed it.

 

The Comments

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  1. I am so desperate for him to get well.
    I love the word “protractor,” can you tell?

    Two lines for your next song!

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