Life is Short

I’m in a total writing rut this month. I waited all summer for the kids to go back to school so I could sit and write, and now that they are gone, it’s too damn quiet! I can’t decide what to write about, or how. I’m like a squirrel who can’t remember where she buried her nuts.

So this month on the blog, I thought I’d post something that pairs nicely with my current attention-deficit mindset—my original “Life is Short: Autobiography as Haiku” entries from 2002. (For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, “Life is Short: Autobiography as Haiku” was a series that ran for many years in the Washington Post’s Style section. Each Sunday, the paper would publish two 100-word or less biographical entries side by side.)

Me, You and Her (published April 6, 2003)

It was our wedding anniversary. We usually dine out, but with a new baby decided to stay home. He fed her, and I baked brie. He bathed her, and I opened up a bottle of wine. He put her to bed, and I put on music. Then she began to cry. So I left him, and went to her. And when she wouldn’t stop crying, he came to us. And as the three of us sat there in the dark, I realized it was our best anniversary yet.

Code Orange

“Drive safely, and have a nice day!” This is what I say to my husband each morning as he leaves for work. Every morning. Religiously. I’m superstitious that way. Today, I inadvertently mixed up the words and said, “Drive nicely, and have a safe day!”  I don’t think my husband noticed, but I did. I began to correct myself, then stopped. In Washington DC on a code orange day, it sounded right both ways.

Twinhood #1

A lot of people I casually meet think I’m moody. Or stuck-up. Or maybe both. They find me perfectly friendly when they meet me but later wonder why I sometimes seem to not recognize them. Sometimes it appears that I just walk on by. What is my problem, they must think. I don’t have a problem; I have a twin sister.

Twinhood #2

I’m a twin. We think fraternal, but possibly identical. We don’t know for sure. This bothers our friends and family more than us. For less than $100 and a quick swab of our cheeks we could find out. But we haven’t. We’d rather not know. What if we found out that we’re less alike than we thought? Or felt pressured to be more, or less, independent? Instead, we’ve decided to remain twins. No qualifier.

On Writing (even though I wrote this in 2002, it’s still true today!)

In my dreams, I’m a writer. Sometimes I am a writer of fiction, and I’ve just written a novel so good that book clubs everywhere clamor to read it. Other times I am a writer of non-fiction, and I am about to publish a groundbreaking book on a subject about which I am a leading expert. In my waking hours, I’m a stay-at-home Mom who dreams about finding enough time to write anything at all.