"Mama, are cookies omavores?" "Um, omnivores eat cookies."
"Oh, [Baby Girl] doesn't want to be an omnivore anymore," said Little Man, skittering off with a bag of cookies.
*** "I'm so glad I'm a mammal. Because horses are mammals, too." - Baby Girl, reminding me that animal classification is one of the oft-forgotten thankfulnesses of this sweet life.
We took the kids to Memphis this week. I'd like to pat ourselves on the back for doing a bang-up job of priming them for why Memphis is such a significant place in shaping this country's history. In particular, we took the kids to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel. As historical showcases go, the museum is just phenomenal. Interactive media, gorgeous photos, and very memorable displays that take one through the history from slavery to the civil rights movement, even ending with a segment on human trafficking.
The tricky thing is that we waited until the 3p entry because Tennesseans need only present their state-issued license to get in free on Mondays! The kids were a little over-hyped by that point. We didn't want to be those parents harping the whole time; we have realistic expectations of how a 6 year-old and a 4 year-old behave in a museum about topics that are way over their heads. Example: they got on the bus with a replica of Rosa Parks and the bus driver chastising her and they were spooked. Dude. Why isn't she moving? Oh. It's a statue. And also, it's Rosa Parks. Complexity.
The part of the museum that takes visitors through a reconstructed room #306 is just very special. You peer into the last place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rested his head before he walked out with his brother and friends and was shot on the balcony by James Earl Ray. You see the books that were tucked into King's suitcase. The passage is cloaked in blue and the music playing is beautiful, funereal and the whole mood is reverent.
As we approached the window to peer in on room #306, my little man said loudly, "Shhh. We're about to meet Elvis."
Memphis, y'all.
I overheard that Beyonce turned 33 today, one of the little quilt squares the radio handed me this morning as I was rushing out the door. Every day I make a quilt from these handouts: worn bits of fabric, the crusts of bread cut from sandwiches, sneezes and spilled popcorn and half-comprehended news bulletins from the radio. I thread them clumsily together throughout the day, grabbing a moment to stitch and form a seam, fumbling through the hallways of academic buildings as the threads come unspooled.
I will try to wind them around the spool later as I sit by the beds of my children; I am held a willing hostage to the Frozen soundtrack, which we cannot let go of--the irony.
I try to add the moment this morning where I stood outside of my son's classroom, a spectator to him calling his sister, already at the other end of the hall. I grab the square where she turned on her heels and came back and hugged her little brother. Where we could have had loose ends, a gaping hole in the quilt where the hallway meltdown ripped apart our efforts to all have a good morning, our girl busted out one important stitch.
I will patch the part later where our boy told me my stomach was the size of a chicken. I will try not allow that patch to call too much attention to itself, as did our boy when he told me over frozen yogurt, "Well, your tummy IS really BIG." I will remember how I accepted his apology, just as the other quilt squares will absorb this unwieldy one into the whole.
This is the quilt I will wrap myself in at the end of the day, pondering what Beyonce will do as she begins this new year of life. What kind of silks and imported fibers will she have to work with for her own quilt; how will the couture fitting go and will she wear it better than anyone else?
I am the only one who will see my quilt, who will know the places where I pricked myself trying to bridge all the scattered pieces. I will run my hand over its ripples and edges and shoddy patchwork and I will call it significant, real, mine, beautiful.
P.S. Happy Birthday, Bey.
