Friday, March 11, 2005

My Pixie Turns Four Years Old in the Days of the Lion and the Lamb

Listening to: The "Happy 4th Birthday, Marni" CD I mixed!

NOTE: I started this a few days back but as I got into it, figured it would be as good as any post for taking another shot at blogging for books. March's theme,
For Blogging for Books #9, write a blog post about any incident in your life in the style of your favorite author. The author can specialize in either fiction or nonfiction, and can even be another blogger.

Since I'm reading Don DeLillo's Underworld, I think I'm into his rhythms although I'm not a tenth of the writer he is. Nonetheless, his style has definitely influenced me the past few days and I hope you'll be brutal in your critique.

My Pixie Turns Four Years Old in the Days of the Lion and the Lamb

It was an April day yesterday, a February day today and that's how March is. Something one day and then something else the next, seeming never quite itself and yet, something more. A month of paradox and complexity, the hint of potential hidden beneath an inch of snow, the silent struggle for survival within a dying season's slipping grasp on a present that's snatched away by the inevitability of another beginning.

I kissed her cheek and told her. "Happy Birthday, Pixie! You're four-years old today!"

"I'm Four, today," she replied, brightly, taking a moment from the cereal bowl in front of her, happy more for the kiss than for the news.

Marni went back to her breakfast, distracted, as if conjuring some distant memory, what it was like being two, what it was like being born, what it was like being four the time before. Half-happy, knowing, bittersweet greeting to another baby step towards the world of us, we, fretters, toilers - the serious. An old soul, she realizes her days of fantasy and imaginary friends are numbered, like a March snowflake, wet and falling fast with its own weight, a tiny light crystalized to be carried on the wind and then, silently disappear. Too soon checking sums on hours worked and what’s left over after the bills are paid but there’s now, she knows, four no longer three and a thousand other things to see today, a thousand things to be.

She stirred her Honey Nut Cheerios humming softly, sometimes sticking the hooves of a toy Pegasus into the Oh's, oblivious to the snow outside and her daddy watching her. Both lost in our focus, our commitment to that instant, that then, that there; all of those and nothing else. She’s thinking of being in the milk, beneath the floating Oh’s, Piscean, swimming in her Marni perfection, dark blue and briny deep, inscrutable, silent, beyond Gollum’s grasping fingers and singing the almost imperceptible tune hummed while her spoon swirls around her bowl.

Across from her, Zeke’s head is down, he’s scooping heaping spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth, trying to ignore that it’s his sister’s birthday. He wants it to be his birthday but if he asked and had something decent to trade, she’d give up her day, she’s just not too concerned about the whole thing. Presents, sure, cool, give me those and let me have your stuffed alligator and the rest of it is yours. Let me swim in my milk, let me see with new eyes somewhere where I have not been, show me something new or let me stir this spoon through my universe.

Breakfast ends and I clear the table, rinse bowls and spoons, put them in the dishpan. Marni and Zeke go into the living room to watch “Blue’s Clues” and this day, the first day of Marni’s fourth year, unfolds like almost every day before it, unremarkable, hackneyed even, kids in front of the TV, dad at the sink doing dishes, the kiss and remark about turning four already a dim memory. Four years ago, this day was monumental, my life changing with another life beginning and every moment of that day is chiseled into my mind like the carefully hewn hieroglyphs on the walls of an ancient tomb. That day I looked out the window from my wife’s room into an unremarkable early March sky, thinking how I would remember that day forever, promising that I would not take that moment for granted.

Lifting my gaze from the suds in the dishpan, I looked out the window to see that it stopped snowing, the sun struggling through the cloud cover to cast light on the thin coating of snow covering the lawn. Time for change, the caprice of March, renewal lunges onward as winter slips once again into the past. Time for a new promise, to not take another moment for granted, not just marking new growth up on the wall but scrawling it indelibly in my mind, Marni is four and it will not pass unnoticed.

16 comments:

Chip said...

That was great Jim! Really good the way you got the rhythms and style. And you manage to really capture those birthday day feelings so well.

Puck said...

Thanks Chip!

I'm not really interested in winning so much as capturing that "DeLillo flow". Re-reading this thing for the Nth time, I feel like I got it but it's not like I'm coming from an objective place.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Aren't little one's birthdays so bittersweet to those of us looking back at the day it represents?

Elisson said...

Excellent writing - it works on its own even without the "trick" of trying to capture another writer's style.

Ahhh, I remember those days...

Cinnabar1 said...

Stunning.

Anonymous said...

I loved reading this and felt like I was sitting at the table with the kids having a bowl of cereal as well. I have nothing to compare you to as far as authoring is concerned, so I thought it was wonderful.

Pisceans are truly dreamy elusive characters...

Jenl said...

Ah yes, wonderfully captured Jim.

:-)

Glitzy said...

Lovely. Glad Blogger didn't eat this one!

Anonymous said...

Oh what a lucky pixie!

Anonymous said...

Love it - you did a wonderful DeLillo, and I have to differ with you and say it was better than my Burroughs. I just don't feel my Burroughs was quite lurid enough. Good Luck in the contest.

SeeingDouble said...

That was really beautiful Jim... you captured the feeling really well. :)

Puck said...

Grace... my lucky number *is* 13! Thank you, m'dear, you're too kind!!!

Puck said...

Thank you, Lu!

I was just over lookin' at you, came back here and saw the comment! Kismet?

Tried to comment on your EXCELLENT new blog (and you'll see the link is reciprocated!) but typepad is acting wacky!

GreenTuna said...

Congrats on your B4B victory! Just know that the Disney Store awaits your assimilation. Resistance is futiile.

beancounter said...

Just beautiful. Grace referred me here, and I am so grateful she did.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that was beautiful! Happy Birthday to your little angel!