A while back, we were driving along in the car and Isaac piped up from the back seat, "Mommy, what if Hitler were stung by a bee and yelled, 'I'm hit! Oh, lawdy I'm hit!'" The young Dada-ist, with his most unlikely conflations. This is a natural consequence of one parent letting him watch Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee MOvie" (in which a very fat good ol' boy provokes a bee to sting him and then screams, "I'm hit, oh lawdy I'm hit!") and the other parent allowing him to watch "Victory at Sea" in excessive quantities.
It always seems to be in the car, where we spend so much of our time, that his mind wanders to these odd places. Like the time he mused, "An avalanche is half the size of a grown-up's gut." What the–?? I said, "You mean, an avalanche? You mean like rocks or snow falling down the side of a mountain?"
He said, "No– no, I mean tarantula."
I said, "okay… and do you mean half the size of a grown-up's GUT, like intestines?"
He said, "No, I mean HAND."
Okay… so NOT an avalanche being half the size of a grown-up's gut, but a tarantula being half the size of a grown up's hand. That's a fine statement, but substitute a few words here and there and it really gets pretty far off track.
Or another example, his new pediatrician's name, Dr. Galm, bears a passing resemblance to "gong farmer ." And isn't it just a classic Isaac moment to sit in the car the whole way to the doctor, snickering about "Dr. Gong Farmer," thus combining his natural five-year-old love of poop, with his bottomless store of esoteric information that many adults don't even know about.
Summer is here. School is out. Sports camp starts Monday. The weather is alternating smothering heat and tropical storms. Last weekend we went to my 20th reunion at Vassar. Oh, LAWDY. I can't fathom that it's been a full twenty years since I graduated, a mere slip of a girl at 21. At the time I planned to be an anthropologist, travel the world, and perhaps write ethnographic novels. I was fresh off 8 months in Kenya and ready for action. But the reality was, I was exhausted and burned out. I went home to Minneapolis, got a job, started dating Ben seriously and settled down. I was weary of having my stuff spread around the world and very sick of being poor. After a few years I had to admit that the anthropology books on my shelf were collecting dust, and the novels were where the action was. I took a writing class, which lead to a writing group, which lead to more and more writing, which finally lead to getting an MFA in writing at Columbia. Then I graduated again, full of hope and promise. Within a month or two of graduation, I landed Binky Urban, one of the biggest most powerful agents in New York. It's amazing that from that promising place, so little has come to fruition.
That's the problem with reunions. They tend to make you take stock. I had reunion anxiety for some time before the big event itself, and then when I got there I realized it was all either my dear friends or people I didn't care about at all. Neither constituency seemed to find me lacking. I was so glad I had our beautiful boys along by way of an explanation as to my complete career stagnation. (Stagflation?)
Really it was wonderful to be back at Vassar– such a stunning and magical place. When I was there, I DID appreciate it. I appreciated it all the time, but still my appreciation seems in retrospect lacking. All that beauty, freedom, ease and plenty. It was like– it was like winning the lottery, but without all the lawsuits. … I'm at a loss for comparisons as to just how wonderful and LUCKY it was. Of course, as is so often the case, I made my own "luck." I worked hard in high school, I figured out how to apply to good schools out east, I got the funding and got myself there. I'm impressed with young me when I think of it, but at the time I was downright cocky, and had the arrogance to be disappointed by it– my fourth choice. I wanted to go to Brown! Indeed, pretty much everyone at Vassar also had wanted to go to Brown… so I was in good company. Little did I know that Vassar was a way better place for me than Brown would have been. I had to do all this figuring from brochures and hearsay.
Actually one reason I even applied to Vassar, or even heard about it at all (living in Minneapolis in pretty humble surroundings), was because a man in our neighborhood referred to my going there in a mocking way. I worked for him cleaning apartments and planting lilies and when he saw me I was generally covered in dirt. He said to me one time, "Hey– why don't you go to Vassar. You'd make a GREAT Vassar girl!" But he said this sarcastically, with an evil smirk on his face. The bastard. Indeed I thought at first that he said "wassal." I had no idea what he was talking about. But later I pulled out my Selective Guide to Colleges, which I had inherited from my Brown-bound boyfriend and mentor. And I figured out that the jerk must have meant Vassar. And I said to myself, "You asshole– I'll show you!!"
I did. I showed him!
Weird how such things can turn into strokes of luck.
Anyway, we had a great weekend. We sweltered in nearly unbearable heat, but still it was fun. Isaac came away with the impression that this is "COLLEGE" with a capital C. I hope it's a good influence on him. He was also very impressed by the massive 32-inch telescope… they opened the observatory one night and Isaac got to be the assistant– he got to do the lever that moved the entire roof!
At the moment though he's standing next to me and begging me, begging me to STOP writing!! We need to make strawberry ice cream, seeing as we went strawberry picking a couple days ago and have already made some stunning unbelievable sorbet.
Life is good…