There were two I remember reading, the missing face one and the really good one, you know were the woman had the perfect life which was suddenly racked by tragedy? Right, but this one forced her to make a choice between a life of Bohemic chic in San Francisco and urban grace in New York. This I could relate to, being so torn between my rugged Colorado summers and my sophisticated Kansas City suburban life, I was lost as to my true self. And just when I settled on the wild west I met a non cowboy with a cowboy name, who is not at all rugged, and then I changed his name, married him, and realized that there is plenty of therapy in that statement.
And that is where that Danielle nonsense will get you, confused and crazy. But not Erma, when I tossed aside The Promise and picked up If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Then Why am I in the Pits?, things started to make sense. Erma taught me to laugh at my real life, and not spend angst ridden teenage years contemplating my imaginary one. Erma knew that the real humor, and joy, was in the mundane, and not the glamour of role playing with big hair doos. Hair dryer, not hair spray, that is what I took to be my mantra.
And on days when nothing falls into place, when the pink eye returns, and the nose sneezes on, and the temperature is 3 degrees, and 110 people are coming to my home where we do have electricity but no sofa, I am grateful to Erma for helping me to laugh at whatever I find at my door each morning.
Thankful for my real life, and my pukey beagle, and handy Jack, meticulous Kate and carefree Mary, because the best things are the real things.
NorthSideFour: You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child. Dr. Suess
1 comment:
Mundane brillance! Another Home Run Ally!
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