Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Arabian Night
So it goes with the rhythm of the week. Sometimes I’m really good at changing things up, other times I fall in with an old, unpleasant beat. Wednesdays seem to be the make-or-break day for this. Bus, dinner, karate, gymnastics, homework on the run, showers, bed. There’s not much room for error (or free time) in the afternoon schedule today, which sometimes stresses us all out. Usually this is at some point when they should be eating but instead are screwing around. Enter ShrewMama, stage left. She is an unwelcome character in this 7-act play.
If you’ve ever seen Aladdin you’ve seen that evil genie at the end. That’s my mental image of ShrewMama. For whatever reason she just bursts from some tightly capped lamp way down in me and roars until …. well …. until she’s done roaring. Then, back down inside, back into the lamp, cap on tight in a dark corner of a deep chasm I wish I didn’t know was there.
The good news is that, in the past few years ShrewMama is getting fewer lines in this life production. What once was a recurring role is down to maybe, like, a guest spot once or twice a week (usually on Wednesdays). Cutting her lines hasn’t been easy, but certainly was necessary. I mean, what self-respecting superhero streaking across the suburbs in her silver mini-van wants her alter ego to be ShrewMama?
Here the refrain plays in my head. "You ain't never had a friend like me!"
Maybe she’s some important part of me: the part that holds on to all the little stuff that’s really annoying, but I feel silly saying anything about it. Maybe Wednesdays are just a straw that breaks the camel’s back (to go back to the Middle Eastern images). Maybe she just needs some controls, … the power to walk rather than burst onto the stage. Maybe then the rest of me might accept her role, even embrace her. After all, she does cram all that junk in her lamp so the rest of me doesn't have to look at it.
