Anna's Question

     It was early when I woke up this morning. And cold. I looked at the clock. I had another hour before the alarm would go off. Too bad. Once I’m up, I’m up, but not necessarily out of bed.

    

     It’s another work day, I thought. (Back in September, I decided not to retire after all. I decided I’d work one more year. Maybe two.) What am I looking forward to? I wondered as my seventy-four-year-old body burrowed itself deeper under the bright new comforter I bought just a couple of days ago. It’s the softest comforter I’ve ever owned, although I am already taking its softness for granted, but not its warmth.

     

Today is Friday, January 8. It’s a new day, I think. A new day in a new year. But it’s winter. Oh god, why can’t I just skip winter this year? So far the winter’s been mild, but how long will that continue before the snow, ice and frigid temperatures begin?

     I let my thoughts about the future slide and thought about the Christmas that just passed. (Funny how once it’s passed, Christmas always seems so far behind me.) It was a quiet Christmas this year. Pleasant and satisfying. Then, two days after Christmas, I took my youngest granddaughter to a toy store. “Pick a toy,” I told her. “Any toy.”

     She picked two dolls – the girls from the movie Frozen, Anna and-

     “What’s that one’s name?” I asked, pointing to the blond.

     “Elsa,” she told me.

     “Oh, right. Elsa. Anna and Elsa.”

     “No Mom-mom,” she said. “It’s not Ann-a. It’s Ahna.”

     “Oh, right,” I said again. 

I thought about the sisters, about their interactions in the movie. And about the little one asking, “Do you want to build a snowman?”
     
     Yes, I thought, finally pushing the covers away. I want to get up. I want to build a snowman! 

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE

Her True Colors

After owning the movie Frozen for only a week, Chloe, the youngest of my ten grandchildren, had watched it so often, she could quote lines from the movie verbatim. For weeks before that, (even before I knew there was a movie called Frozen), she was running through the house singing “Let it Go” at the top of her lungs. What does a five-year-old know about letting go? I wondered as she breezed past me one day on her way from the kitchen to the living room.  

Which reminds me. When Chloe returned from her first day of preschool two years ago - and while we were coloring adjacent pages in her coloring book -  I decided to ask her how her day was. (Is there some kind of secret oath that students take that makes them all say "good" whenever they are asked that question by their elders, and despite the crayons, I am her elder)? 

Chloe didn't disappoint.  "Good," she said. I decided to try harder. "But what did you learn?" After holding her breath for a moment, she looked up. "I love Antarctica," she said in a way I could tell came straight from her heart. 

"You do?" I said, so surprised my voice rose an octave or two. "Why?"
"Because it has penguins - and Eskimos and lots of snow," she answered. (That, of course, was before last winter.) I marveled at her innocence.


Now, as the school year is about to end and Chloe is about to graduate from pre-school, she still loves singing "Let it Go" at the top of her lungs and I am still wondering what she could possibly know about letting go. At least I felt that way until a few moments ago when, after sitting in my room alone - giving a clown purple hair, Chloe rushed in, gave me a hug, and told me she loved me. It was then that I turned to my computer and found these words posted on my Facebook page: "Innocence is the ability to give and receive love without holding on."   

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE