
Jacqueline’s answer: “My ‘wose’ was seeing Mimi (her grandmother) and my thorn was a boy in my class is annoying.”
So I ask you the same 2 questions during this unprecedented time.
What is the rose?
- Appreciating the journey. Although the cliché circulates Pinterest boards and journal covers, I am understanding this phrase in the micro, in the afternoon walk. The walk on a rainy day with no destination. The destinations that existed before are all boarded up so the walk just is. We just are.
- The sound of birds. I hear birds, clearly and completely. And now, more than ever before, I listen for birds. I open the windows. I get still.
- Natural. Trying out natural deodorant with extreme confidence.
- Moments with my children. Lucy’s new over-exaggerated laugh as if she is practicing for an upcoming dinner party with an exceptionally dull audience. Felix learning how to use his eyebrow muscles a la Marx Brothers. The longer than usual lounging in beds. The patience for singular activities to last the afternoon, making cookies and bread, construction paper project, and chapter books, included. Witnessing their relationship together, yesterday they found a popcorn kernel left over from a movie night, named Bean. Bean is a new friend who has his own sports car and lives in a coin collection sheet. Great reminder that friends can be found anywhere. Including under the couch.
What is the thorn?
- Moments with my children. Let’s be real. They are not all like the aforementioned. Facing the challenge every ten minutes to parent appropriately so that they can be proper citizens of the world and not the nagging creatures I am currently encountering.
- The fear. The fear of the unknown in our world and raising a family within it. The fear of someone being sick.
Things that made her smile? Their eighth grade neighbor making them masks out of extra cloth; a visit by Lucy’s best friend and Dad — saying hi from the street — and making her smile; a friend preparing them dinner and placing it on the porch before disappearing.
What’s your rose? Your thorn? Please feel free to email me at thetangledball@gmail.com. And if you have more thorns than roses right now, understood. Share away! We’re in this together.
It may not seem like it at this moment but soon we’ll be talking about the buds (future).