A wing and a prayer

...a dispatch from bewilderness

In my first life, I had a job imagining things. I made even more lovely thousands of places I didn’t belong and even more lively thousands of conversations I wasn’t in.

I took people to places they loved, places I hadn’t seen. Tucked between perfect covers – like wrapping at Christmas – beribboned and gleaming under the tree.

This was called freelance writing. For places like Vanity Fair and Vogue. And personalities like Martha Stewart and Kermit the Frog.

Which brings us to trauma. When I was in fourth, fifth and sixth grade, the USA and Russia were busy bragging about the size of their bombs. As in “Mine is bigger than yours,” followed by “No, mine is bigger than yours.” As well as the size of their arsenal, as in “I can destroy the world faster than you,” vs. “No, I can destroy the world faster than you.”

This culminated in the Bay of Pigs and a few days during which we stared down the barrel of mutual annihilation. This was called The Cuban Missile Crisis.  I was eleven years old.

Fyi, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is a black and white film about Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which meant the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could wipe each other out.

Fyi, Dr. Strangelove has been called 11th funniest comedy ever, the 18th funniest comedy ever, and not funny at all, depending on whom you ask.

Some kids are supposed to be seen but not heard. I was supposed to be NOT seen and NOT heard. Which brings us to memories. Memories are like a book that isn’t bound. If you place them on the porch, they may blow away. If you place them on the kitchen counter, they may blow away. 

The top pages will fly first. Those are short-term memories, things that happened today or maybe five minutes ago. And then the middle will fly, and then the last pages, which are favorite moments you thought you could never lose. Then you get it.  There’s nothing you can’t ever lose. Which brings us to prayer.