Cholera and Whores

I’ve just finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, and this sentence wants to stick with me for some reason:

“It was a meditation on life, love, old age, death:
ideas that had often fluttered around her head like nocturnal birds but dissolved into a trickle of feathers when she tried to catch hold of them.”

I don’t know why it grabs me the way it does, except maybe that motherhood makes me feel that way. Not only do the big ideas dissolve and trickle, but the little ones too: who was I supposed to call, what was I supposed to buy, where am I supposed to be tonight, etc. Reproduction has completely compromised my ability to hold any one thought in my head for too long before it flutters away.

Maybe it’s too easy to blame motherhood. It could be adult-onset ADHD.

Now onto 100 Years of Solitude.

And about those whores….

John’s inability to pronounce certain words correctly led to a profound misunderstanding last week. It went like this:

John: “Hannah and I are playing whore-land.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

John: “WE’RE PLAYING WHORE-LAND.”

Me: (exchanging bemused glances with Karl) “And what exactly happens in whore-land?”

John: “Well, there are whores and they have horns on their heads. Two horns.”

Me: “Why do they have horns?”

John: “Because all whores have horns.”

Me: “Where did you learn about whore-land?”

John: “In Goosebumps.”

At this point, I understood what was going on and cracked up. He was talking about horror land, something that comes up in the Goosebumps series, but the poor kid couldn’t say it right. Our main concern was that he’d play horror land at school, where mangling that word might get him in serious trouble with Sister Mary. For much of the week I worried I’d get one of her notes: “Must talk. John is playing whores at recess.”

Happy Sunday,
B.

Oedipus R Us

Last night, John Matthew reached up to grab my face with his little hands. Holding each of my cheeks and pulling my face close to his, he said, “I’m going to kiss you like Lancelot kisses Guinevere.”

If he can hold on to lines like that, he’ll have a very successful romantic life.

Karl overheard and yelled, “Oh no you’re not.”

It seems John watched Camelot while visiting his Opa a few weeks ago. He’s been in a fantasy world of knights, kings, castles, and courtly love ever since.

Maybe the movie explains why he came home from school one day last week with a story about being “in loved.”

“Mommy, Maia hugged me and now we’re in loved,” he told me.

“You are?” I asked. “And what does that mean?”

John said, “It means I’m going to marry her. She likes animals like I do.”

“Where will you live?”

“We can live at Maia’s house.”

“And what will you do all day at Maia’s house when you’re married?”

“I guess just play a lot.”

Sure enough, I met Maia a couple of nights ago and her story is the same. She introduced herself to me and Karl—all the while with her arm around little John’s shoulders—and told us she loved John and was going to marry him. Bold little thing. And awfully cute. John blushed the whole time. Amazing.

B.