The Thing With Feathers

Friday, November 04, 2005

I Live in Possibility

The day before Halloween, I saw the elderly lady next door in her driveway. I was with the kids and she made all the necessary cooing noises and asked if I was going to bring them by trick or treating. I promised I would, ignoring the wave of dread and white middle-class guilt that washed over me.

The woman herself has never been a problem, but she is the pariah of the neighborhood: her teenage grandson vandilized people's yards, the police stop by frequently, the children across the street gossip that she's running a meth lab and won't walk on her lawn. Anyway, I dressed them up (visualize two Chinese-born toddlers, one in a chicken costume complete with beak and the other a sun flower) and took them over after dinner.

She answered the door with two plush bags, one cartoon vampire and one pumpkin, filled with bags of candy and little fuzzy dogs wearing witch hats. I was stunned. The bags played "Halloween carols" when you pushed a button in the handle and my kids were entranced. We mumbled our surprized and effusive thanks and went home.

Readers offended by sentimentality and cliche stop reading here and go watch "House, M.D." on Fox. I make a big noise in my personal interior monologues about being a compassionate liberal and a wannabe Christian Episcopalian and yet I rarely miss a beat when it comes to the demonizing, stereotyping thing. Okay, maybe not every time, but more than I care to.

One of the best things about bringing the kids home, aside from their wonderful selves, of course, has been the abundant evidence of how much actual good will there is in the world, much of it in very unlikely places. Like next door.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

This is My Letter to the World

Yes. I was an English major. Poetry allusions and references to my poet du jour will be a feature of this blog, as will stories about my kids, neurotic reactions to being over forty, and musings about the terror and joy of being the parent of two year old twins. Welcome.