A letter from Syria

Is it raining at your house?

Here it is cloudy, with a chance of shells this afternoon. 

We’ll take a walk in our rain boots by the red river down the street. 

We’ll return home and drink a toast to the future, to the memory of our 8,000 friends lost.  We’ll raise dirty glasses full of dirty water to our tired lips. We’ll feast upon our last two onions, kiss our babies’ cold faces good night, then fall asleep under the blanket of our collapsing roof. 

While the world watches weather reports, we’ll try to yell loud enough for you to hear us.  Perhaps the ground will shake a little beneath you if we all cry in unison.  Perhaps then you will turn off your weather, your music, your video games, and listen to us telling you that the rain here is different than yours.  Perhaps then your eyes will rain for us, and your lips will gently whisper, “I’ll pray for you, Syria.” 

And maybe then the forecast here will change.

Homs, Syria - Washington Post

The ghosts of "me" past

We were driving home yesterday when a strange thing happened.

We stopped at the light on the corner of University and University. We were holding hands, as usual, and I looked up at the Riviera apartments across the street.

Then suddenly I saw myself five years ago, passing this very light, driving to see a friend at those apartments, not knowing that when I met her boyfriend a few moments later I would be meeting my future husband.  Not knowing that, five years later, we would be driving home to our cozy little cottage from a Friday night date to Jason’s deli, stopped at that same light, holding hands and laughing at each other’s jokes.

Time is an interesting thing, is it not? I wonder what I’ll be remembering five years from today. I wonder what, in five years, will make me marvel yet again at how perfectly the little pieces of life put themselves together.

On maturity

Being a grown-up is neat.

For example, if I want to have butterscotch pudding from the fridge before dinnertime, I can just go ahead and have it!  And if I don’t especially feel like putting my dirty socks in the laundry bin, I can just fling them any which way without a single repercussion.

Sometimes the whole grown-up thing really amazes me too.  Like the fact that (most weeks) we remember – out of all the grown-up things there are to remember –to take the garbage out to the road the night before garbage day.  I always give Kendon a high-five when we take the garbage out to the road.  It’s an activity that reminds me that I really am 25.

There are times, though, when I feel the opposite of 25. Like last night, when I really just needed to have a good cry, and my grown-up husband held me and wiped my eyes and told me everything was going to be OK.  It’s nice having another grown-up in the house for times like that.  And sometimes the husband needs to be a kid for a little while too, and then I get to take my turn being the Bagley house grown-up.

Being a grown-up is neat. But having someone to take care of you when you feel 10 years old is even neater.