Confession Tuesday

My Answer?  "I'm taking the pets..."

Dear Reader,

I'm off to visit my friend Susan Rich today in Seattle, but wanted to slide in a few confessions before the ferry arrives...

To the confessional--

The Number 1 Answer was...

I confess I have realized that I would be the worst player on Family Feud because I realize my perception on the world is not the "majority's" perception on the world.

Example-- I was watching Family Feud and they said, "Name something you can never have too much of."  My answer?  Slippers.   Survey says: X   #1 answer:  Money.   My second answer:  Books.  Survey says:  XX

I was also kind of amused that "slippers" came before "books" for me, but honestly, who can enjoy a book if your feet are cold?

~

Shaken, Not Stirred

I confess I spent all day yesterday on military base for my daughter's field trip.  It's the same military base I would bring my daughter to when she was a baby for playgroups when she was a baby (pre 9/11).  After 9/11 everything changed on getting onto the base. It became much more strict and serious.  No cellphones with cameras allowed, car checks, strict background checks, etc.  Before it was, "Hey there!" and drive on in.

It's always weird for me (the peace activist, the liberal, the poet) to be on the military base (I tend to think about the bombs, the secret areas, the weapons), but I must say it's pretty intriguing to get to visit a military base if you haven't-- I have a huge respect for the soldiers, their rules & procedures on the base, and have met some of the nicest people there.  Of course, what really made my day was that my Visitor's Pass was numbered 007.  I tell you, had I been wearing my secret decoder ring, it could have been a very different day!

~

I confess I'm completely lost in the holiday spirit, domestic bliss, and all the home things I tend to ignore most the year.

I confess I am cooking (cooking!) these days.  This is not a norm for me as I confess that my husband does the majority of the cooking because I tend to get overwhelmed in the kitchen.  "Overwhelmed in the Kitchen" would be the title of my recipe book and it would include pages of menus of restaurants to call to make reservations.

But there's something about Christmas music playing in the kitchen that makes me don my vintage apron my Nana made and whip up enough Hearty Corn Chowder to eat and even extra to freeze.  I think honestly though, there is a part of me that worries if I get too Suzy Homemaker I might forget to write, I might give up everything to be June Cleaver.

Once I said, "I could be the person who just redecorates her house again and again..."  It was this fear that I might lose my artist self if I get too involved in what has been called (and not so nicely), "women's work."  I think if I look deeply into myself, one of the reasons I tend to poo-poo the domestic chores and housewifely things, is because 1) it's hard to be both  2) maybe I worry that I'll use all my creativity on the remodeling the bathroom and have nothing left for the page.

I'm not sure, but there's something more to for me to think about it, to think about why my artist heroes have always been the opposite of my life -- Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Annie Lebowitz.  And my favorite poet mothers (Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton) killed themselves, something I wouldn't recommend.

But I'm happy these days with the Christmas music on in the background.  Maybe it's more of an "ignorantly bliss" since NPR has been turned off, but it's a good place, lala land, in the world of my mind and memories (I cannot tell you how many times I have mentioned my father in this last week), so I'll stay here a little longer, at least until Christmas, and maybe New Year's, then the real world will poke its head in again.  I'll be ready.

Amen.


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