August 21, 2008
the darkness comes and the darkness goes
My father was promoted to Chief Master Sargeant and there was a party at the NCO club. We kids stayed home with a sitter. In the morning there were "congratulations" presents in the living room, including one from my father's students: a plaque with a medicine bottle (probably filched from the dispensary) glued to it. On the bottle was a prescription label with dosage instructions: "For Verbal Diarrhea: Take as Necessary."
I think I used to have a lot to say. Or more to say, anyway--or maybe I just didn't mind saying the same things over and over. Now I always wonder if talk too much. Do people come into my office and then wish they hadn't? Do they make a casual comment and then sink into discreet dismay when I pursue the subject? Am I that nice older woman with the unfortunate tendency to ramble? I have no idea. At work and on the way home there are people to talk to and then when I get home, there are mostly not. So maybe it's just that I am noisy in one venue and quiet in another.
My children talk to me when necessary, and when there's nobody else around. And sometimes not even then. Moo was at the front door this evening saying good-bye to his BFF.
"Come for a walk with me," I said. Looking out into the gloaming, I could see a bat dive-bombing mosquitos.
"No; I don't want to."
"Why should that stop you?"
Nevertheless it did stop him and that was that; he turned and went back downstairs to the twin joys of TV and Gears of War and I walked by myself in silence.
When I got home the evening sky was turning from apricot to plum and the late-summer insects began their conversation. As I sit writing this I can hear Moo downstairs on his headset talking to somebody. Else.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)