On Mayhem: Surviving Christmas alone

(Disclaimer: I will use Christmas here as an overall reference to the late December holidays. If you celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanza or anything else, that's fantastic, please do apply the thoughts and points in this blog to yourself. It's just that I celebrate - in a very loose sense of the word - Christmas, so that's the holiday I'm going with. No discrimination meant here whatsoever.)

Okay, quick: when you think of Christmas, what comes to mind?

Admit it - immediately, just for a split second, you thought of gifts, didn't you? It's okay, most all of us do, it's natural, I think, in such a materialistic society (especially if you're an American, we can't help it).



But for most people, Christmas means time with family and friends - and for lots of people (myself included, during my stint living in Florida) friends are considered family.

But there are those traditional people, millions of them, who want to be surrounded by family at Christmas: whether that is blood-related family, those belonging to your spouse, or step-families, which is prevalent in the case of myself and The Dude: my step-mother's family is vast, far-flung, and yet near and dear and has treated us (and me, in particular) just as they do the rest of the family, despite the lack of actual blood relation. That's not always the case, and I am thankful for that.

So, what do you do if you no longer have any close family - blood, non-blood or otherwise? Is Christmas a time when, if you have no one else with whom you can celebrate, you can go to the home of a friend to visit on Christmas Day, and if so, should you be there during "Santa" time, or wait until later, after lunch maybe, and if so, what do you do with yourself until the point that you think it might be comfortable enough to visit with your friends?

These questions had never even been an issue for me until last year, when my mother's father died. It was heartbreaking after her mother died, but then her death was followed by my grandfather's and then my young cousin, just months after, in 2008. Now, as far as close family is concerned, my mother is left with her sister, whom... well, I won't get into that, but suffice it to say that my aunt has her own "family" that is a priority. I'm trying hard to be a good Southern girl, and you know what they say to do if you can't say something nice... Bless Her Heart.

I've told my mother, over and over, and my stepmother has told her, over and over, that she's more than welcome to spend Christmas morning with us, at my dad's, but understandably she's not quite comfortable with that. She and and my father had a less than amicable divorce, and although they now get along okay - they speak to each other, which was a feat thought insurmountable until we saw an ultrasound with The Dude's sharp profile - they are not exactly to that point of blending families. This, as I said, is understandable.



(Okay, so it's not really like that, but I've been waiting forever for an excuse to post that picture, and this was ideal.)

In an ideal world, Mom would whisk The Dude and myself away with her to Florida for Christmas and just skip the whole she-bang, but neither she nor I would do that to my son or my family. Which leaves me in the sticky spot of what to do, how to feel, and how tall of a wall to build around myself in order to not go completely insane worrying about her.



Which leads me to another point of worry, something that weighs on me like a stone in my pocket, something I return to nearly every day and rub, anxious, achy: the man I will call John, who lives in his van in the parking lot of the Burger King next door.

We've all come in contact with homeless people, and if you haven't you should consider yourself very, very lucky. I've encountered them all over the world - from London to San Francisco - and it never gets any easier. They're all different, of course, just as all people are different: some are quiet and almost dignified, some are so aggressive and persistent you could swear they were agents or ad salesmen in their previous lives. But they all have one thing in common: at night they are cold and almost always hungry - for one thing or another - and have no stable, loving environment in which to call home.

John has lived in the parking lot next door as long as I've worked here - well over two years now, and I know he's been here longer that that. He hangs out in Burger King, and the crew over there is nice enough to let him, give him coffee and, I suspect, food in exchange for odd jobs and "security" in the parking lot.

A long time ago the company I work for owned another newspaper that covered the Madison area, and it ran a weekly coupon for McDonalds, for a free something or other - a breakfast sandwich in the morning and a Big Mac in the afternoon. John would come over every day and get seven papers - one for each day, so he was at least guaranteed two meals a day, and take them to the McDonalds just down the street. We sold that paper four months after I started here, and he was devastated. I rummaged through our old papers and clipped out a folder full of the coupons for him, and the local McDonalds honored them. It fed him for almost a year.

Christmas is about family, and friends, and honoring what we are blessed with, not weighing what we have against what we don't, or what we need, or what we want.

I want a netbook, the surprised and delighted smile on my son's face, and happiness for my family.

My mother wants her parents back, serenity, and to be surrounded with love at all times.

John wants warmth, and food, and security.

What do you want for Christmas?

On Motherhood: Remembering Unk

My father and his older brother were raised by their mother, uncle, and aunt on a farm in Hartsville, Tennessee. The farm was off of Walnut Grove Road, which meanders along rising hills of green, dotted with yellow and purple flowers, sunsplashed, in the summertime. The small house sat at the end of a gravel drive, and there was a low rock fence, with a gap in the middle beside the mailbox, down by the road made of white slabs of stone most likely pulled from one of the many quarries our part of Tennessee. My father's mother, uncle, and aunt were all teachers, all unmarried: the ladies widowed and my uncle a lifelong bachelor.

My father's father died of a brain aneurysm when my father was six years old. The family, at that time, lived in Oak Ridge, where my grandfather worked at the nuclear plant. I don't know what he did there exactly, but I've always dreamed he was a top engineer or scientist with the Manhattan project, or designed bombs or made fusion more efficient. I do know that he, like my father, was exceptionally smart. My father's brother, Joe Pat, a few years older, died the same way before he was 50 years old.

My grandmother did not drive. This was in the mid 1940s, and she was a lovely lady of the flapper generation: gorgeous and sassy and spoiled.



I'm not sure who did it, but I think it was my uncle and his nephew, my great aunt's son, Doodle, (Yes, Doodle. I don't even recall his real name.)who packed up my grandmother and her little boys and moved them back home to the farm, where she lived until she passed away on February 2, 1997.

The Dude was named after my great uncle, who was legally Benjamin Brown Draper, but who I always called Unk. All my cousins - all eight of them, Joe Pat's children - called him Unk as well, and I have rarely known of a man more adored by family, friends and colleagues alike than Unk, also known as Mr. Draper.

(I wish I had a photo of him with me now to include, but they are all at home, or burned with my father's home in 2005.)

All three of them, as I mentioned, were teachers: my grandmother, or Gran (Robbie James Draper Wiley), and my great aunt (Vyda Mae Draper Thompson, and the most saintly woman who has ever graced this earth) at a tiny one-room schoolhouse just down Walnut Grove Road from the house, and Unk at the Trousdale County High School, where he was regionally renowned for his farming education and FFA leadership. Hell, even in high school I knew people involved in FFA who knew him, or at least of him, and he passed away when I was in the 6th grade.

But for me, what was special about Unk wasn't who knew him or what a superb teacher he was, but how he made me feel, which was as if I were the most special little girl in the world. Beautiful, smart, and important: and he was a man of few words.

I was lucky: my Alaska cousins as I call them - Joe Pat's children, who all grew up in Anchorage - only got to visit him sporadically, although the older ones, especially Kathy, were good about coming in the summers to visit. But I got to see "the trio," as I call my Gran, Unk, and Aunt Vyda Mae now, much more often, especially since they were much older: my father was 40 when I was born, so they were already in their late 60s and 70s when I was young - Unk especially.

I remember him leaning over, bending his tall frame almost in half, to pick buttercups along the crumbling rock sidewalk in front of the house with me, because buttercups were always my favorite when I was little. We had them at my house, at their house, and it seems now my little girl life was filled with buttercups, our first sign of spring and warmer, better things to come. I remember him making a swing for me and hanging it in the branches of a tree with no top, no matter how I stood and turned, I could never see the topmost branches of that tree, or the sky beyond it. I remember his laughter as he pushed me, skinny legs and white patent-leather shoed feet kicking, as high as he could before leaning against the tree, smiling, telling me I looked just like my daddy, whom he loved so much.

My father, mother and me at the farm

But as I get older the one aspect of that farm that keeps resurfacing for me is the tiny cabin out behind the house which, when I was little, was always locked. They told me it was a cabin for farmhands, for helpers, for storage. It wasn't until I was in high school and either broke in (most likely) or someone finally let me in (not probable) that I saw the narrow cot against one wall, the doll-sized kitchen, the homey touches like curtains, a hand-knotted rug, and cushions on the seat of the rocking chair in one corner, flattened with time and use. I wandered around the tiny cabin, the raw wood ceiling just inches over my head, touching books, notebooks, old newspapers and magazines, sneezing every now and then, wiping my eyes, awed.

Unk never married: he promised his mother on her deathbed that he would take care of his two sisters until he died, and that's exactly what he did.

For years, until I was a grown woman out of college, I held fast to his sacrifice, his unwavering selflessness, his principles and his morals. That is, until someone - and God help me, I can't remember who - let me in on the little secret: that little cabin was no farmhand retreat, no storeroom.

It was his bachelor pad.

"His what?" I recall breathing. There could be no such thing - Unk was asexual. Unk was practically a saint. He didn't have physical urges or need women like that. Selfless! Moral! Principles!

"Cathouse," I believe the term was.

And then it struck me like a slap on the ass: that book. That book on the shelf in his simple bedroom of pine and warm wood. The book with the naked people in it. I never saw it until I was tall enough to be on eye level with the bookshelf over his desk, but there it was: a book about nudists in America. "Naturalists," I believe they were called.

Turns out Unk was human. In a little girl's eyes he was a looming, smiling figure who said "Gimmie a bus" when he wanted a kiss on the cheek, who had an impressive collection of bolo ties he gave to my maternal grandfather and which I rarely saw him without. Who's sharp chin, impressive eyebrows and warm eyes I see more and more in my own father's face each time I see him.

For whom I named my son: Draper.

The saints in our lives are still people. They make mistakes and they have urges and needs and are human. It's how we choose to remember them, how they made - or if we're lucky, still make - us feel about ourselves and the world that matters.

I don't remember Unk for that cabin now, although it amuses me to think about it. I remember him as a shadow against the sun, leaning over me, tucking a snipped buttercup behind my ear, his warm, papery hand lingering on my jawline. I remember him as strong hands against my back, pushing me in a swing, my laughter and squeals rising into the leafy tops of a tree I could not see past. He is low raspy laughter and a cheek turned for a kiss. And he is leaning against a tree, arms crossed, bolo tie cords askew, smiling, saying: "Aren't you just the loveliest little girl."

On Mayhem: Reconnecting

Today I went to a funeral for the mother of a very good friend of mine. Granted, I've only hung out with my friend a few times since The Dude was born, because once he happened my lifestyle changed. (Okay, admittedly I had a rocky few months that first year, but I've cleaned up my act.) The last time Mark and I got together was a few months ago, when he and I went to Sole Mio and then the Nashville Symphony together, a fantastic night I promised him I would blog about and then never did.

Mark has always, always been very good to me. He's a prosperous attorney who divorced shortly after I met him. I was bartending at Ole Neighborhood, and he was ending a 20-something year marriage. He was single, I was single, and we had the same tastes. We were quite the "couple" about town for many years: we hit all the good parties, the benefits, the black-tie fundraisers. Eventually I started writing for The Wilson Post newspaper, still bartending on the weekends, so between the two of us we were invited to basically every event worth going to in the immediate area. It was fun, and one of the reasons why I don't think I "missed out" on anything when I had my son. I had that single lifestyle, the partying, the late nights, for years. Hell, I was nearly 27 years old when I had The Dude: I'd had my fun.

But Mark was there the day The Dude was born, beaming, proud and beatific and terrified right along with me. I don't have to see the photograph taken of him holding The Dude, so tiny and hidden in the blankets and born over a month early, to remember how Mark simply glowed with the knowledge of another little me in the world.

Then, as it does, life intervenes. I became more and more absorbed with work and writing, with guiding The Dude and everything that goes along with that, and Mark retreated from the community spotlight, redecorated his house, and sent two of his boys to college. There were the random text messages, pics exchanged via cell phones, but no real contact except when both of my grandparents died, and I barely remember that, steeped in a fog of grief and fear.

So, it takes a day like today, the funeral of his mother, to bring us back together. Mark held up well: his mother had been in hospice care for months, losing her third battle with cancer, so her passing was not a surprise, but I'm sure a bit of a relief that her long struggle and pain was over, and she could join her beloved husband, who left us a few years ago as well.

But it shouldn't take an event like this to reconnect friends. I sat in the hushed funeral parlor this morning, yellow sunlight streaming through purple and cream stained-glass windows, thinking of how awful it is that Mark's mother died three days before Thanksgiving, on the cusp of the holiday season. How Thanksgiving will never be the same for anyone in his family again.

Then I watched Mark and his family file into the sanctuary, light catching in a flash in his rimless glasses, glinting off the silver hoop in his oldest son's ear. And he sat with his ex-wife, who bent her head toward him and nodded, sniffling. Just two rows back, I looked at the lines of their bodies, how the boys' faces are shaped, the curve of their jawline, just like their mother's, how they all have Mark's gorgeous dark, slightly curly, hair. They sat together, tight, holding themselves and each other together.

That's when I realized that too often we concentrate on what we don't have, what we have lost, instead of what, and especially who, is nearest to us. We watch and wait and covet and need, instead of taking stock of those so close we can literally reach out and touch them.

I'm as guilty, if not more, than anyone of this. That's why this Thanksgiving will be so difficult for me: I know I need to finish the newsletter, and write the Wilson Living article, and at least attempt to work on the novel and Jordan's workshop, and I'm so obsessive and have a tendency to be single-minded when I'm set on something, it's going to take an effort of will to actually stop, calm down, and enjoy myself tomorrow. I will be scooping dressing and ladeling gravy while working on the InDesign spread in my head or worrying about magazine-worthy pictures that I need to make sure get to who needs them, by deadline.

I will not, without consciously trying, be in touch with those around me.

So, this is why I am giving myself permission to reconnect with myself - my non-working self - and with my family. There's no reason not to and too many reason to do it.

And, on Friday, when I'm shopping and stressing and wondering how in the world I'm going to make all this work, that's when I'll worry about deadlines.

On Mayhem: Playing catch up

So, if you read my last blog you'll know that I have quite a few things on my plate for this month... which is already past halfway over. I cannot believe this. This in inconceivable. (Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE. - Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.)

I refused to prioritize the tasks set up for myself this month because they are all very important to me for different reasons, but it looks like the Tennessee Writers Alliance newsletter is pulling ahead in the lead: is it taking more time and concentration, a more intense effort. It's a lot of work but a lot of fun, and I know that the end product is going to make my fellow TWA board members, as well as our members, proud, and hopefully show some writers who are not members of the TWA what an invaluable, warm, and important organization the TWA is, and they'll join. (www.tn-writers.org)

And then there's NaNo - National Novel Writing Month. Ah, NaNo, how you've plagued me. I started off strong - over 7,000 words in the first two days of November. Since then... well, as I've said, other things have crowded their way in. I recently when to a marathon write-in, which helped, but I am still woefully behind. But here's the deal: I know me. I know how I write. I will be hit with a wave, an undertow urge, if you will, to write that will hold me down, suck me under, and the words will flow from me (they may not be good words, but they will be words, and they will COUNT). But the old adage about writing being a muscle you must use or it will atrophy is true: my characters are hissing now behind my back instead of talking openly to me. They're keeping something from me. Hell, one character hasn't showed up at all: I haven't written one word about her. I'll get 2,000 words AT LEAST today. (checks clock. dammit.)

Before I knew the madness that would be November, I signed up for an online workshop with the lovely and talented (and infinitely patient with me) Jordan Rosenfeld. I have not been able to dedicate myself and my time to that workshop as much as I wanted, and for that I am deeply regretful and disappointed. The fact that several of my writerly friends are also involved in the workshop and that I'm missing it, and them, and the forum discussions, irritates and irks me to no end. But I'm working on it. I'm working on it.

One bright spot is my article for Wilson Living Magazine. I'm really enjoying working on this one, since the subject matter is near and dear to my heart. I won't divulge too much information since I want our readers to be surprised and eager to pick up the next issue, but I will say it has to do with the West Wilson Arts Alliance, of which I'm a huge fan.

And speaking of the West Wilson Arts Alliance, while interviewing the head honcho for that article I brought up the idea of having a Writers Guild to go along with the Fine Arts Guild, the jazz ensemble, Cedar Creek Community Band, Encore Theatre, and Chorale Dynamics. A group that could meet to write together, critique our work, and eventually read our work at other WWAA events.

He said he'd actually been thinking about that and had me in mind to organize it. I struggled to keep my mouth from dropping open. I agreed, perhaps more enthusiastically than appropriate (which is my MO), and may have missed a bit of what he said next during my frenzied note-taking about how to organize a group of writers - or, perhaps, MORE than one group! So, now I get the fantastic opportunity of organizing writers groups... except I don't know anything about organizing writers groups. Fortunately, I learn quickly, adapt easily, and have the utmost passion for this project.

That said, if you are a writer interested in joining a new writers group - or know someone who fits that criteria - email me at TnWriterEditor@gmail.com.

So, there I am. And all this, plus my actual day job (which I just love), and life with The Dude, the family, the... other. And the other? That's a whoooole different story.

On Motherhood: Understanding and Acceptance

If you follow my blog and/or me on Facebook or Twitter (or, God forbid, you know me in person) you know that I have a lot on my plate for November: NaNoWriMo (in which my goal is to finish a 50,000 word draft of a novel in 30 days), writing for, editing, and publishing The Tennessee Writer, the quarterly newsletter for the Tennessee Writers Alliance, due online December 1, and my article submission for Wilson Living Magazine, the gorgeous glossy published right here in Lebanon, TN, deadline by the end of November. Oh, and there's also The Chronicle of Mt. Juliet, of which I am the managing editor.

So, needless to say, even though it is only (checks date) November 3, I've been rather busy lately. Between notes and prepping and emails (I'm also in charge of gathering advertisers and publicizing the newsletter and newspaper) I've been doing the only basest of chores before shutting myself into the office, staring at the computer for around six hours between 8 p.m. and whenever, trying to get work done.

My mother has helped, my family has helped (and will help - I also have a wedding next weekend in Cincinnati), but my son, tonight, made me feel not only guilty but that all the hard work I'm doing is well worth it, because I don't do it - well, not the bulk of it - for myself: I do it for him, for my family, so that they will not only be proud of me for my accomplishments but for what my work will reap (hopefully) for myself and them in the future. So that, someday, I'll be able to repay them, in some way, for supporting, loving, and helping me during these hectic, busy days.

Tonight, after I made a hurried supper of spaghetti and oil with tomatoes and herbs, The Dude curled up in my lap and, with a full tummy and a long day at school, promptly fell asleep in my lap before 8 p.m. I waited until a commercial during "So You Think You Can Dance," which we like to watch together, and ushered him to the bathroom to pee before going to bed. He's had a bit of a bed-wetting problem lately, which I refuse to blame myself and our busy schedule and instead chalk up to a "phase" of being a four year old little boy. I tried to tuck him into bed, but instead he insisted, rather vehemently, that he sleep on the couch, just outside the door to the study.

"Honey," I coaxed, "you'll be much more comfortable in the bed. Please."

"No," he pushed my hands away, toddling, weaving, up the hall to the den. "I want to sleep on the couch. Just please let me lay on the couch."

"Baby," I whispered, covering him with the softest red blanket we have, a gift from PaTom and Nana last Christmas. "Why? Just go to bed."

"No," he muttered, settling in. "You have to work tonight, and I wanna be right here on the couch close to you in case you need something. You hafta write the novel and newsletter so if you need something, like a popsicle or something, I'm here to get it. I'll be here."

I kissed him, lingering on the warm pulse of his temple. "Thank you."

He smiled, already nearly asleep. "Yeah, Mom. Go do your fing now." He tucked his hand beneath his chin, cupping his palm against itself, exactly the way that I sleep. "I love you. You're the best mommy in the whole world."

He says this to me at least ten times a day. And every single time is better than the one before.

On Mayhem: November

If I make it to December I will be one accomplished, and exhausted, young woman.

Here's a list of items I have to do next month (or, if you want to be picky about it, in less than a week):

1. National Novel Writing Month which, to quote the site: "is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2008, we had over 119,000 participants. More than 21,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists."

Yeah. A novel. In a month. Got it. Moving on...

2. An online writing workshop for the entire month with Jordan Rosenfeld entitled Fiction's Magic Ingredient. Hopefully I can incorporate this work with the NaNoWriMo work and get double the pleasure, double the fun. Or double the insomnia and stress. As I tell The Dude: You choose!

3. Compile articles and information, edit, produce and publish The Tennessee Writer, the quarterly online newsletter for the Tennessee Writers Alliance. I am so stoked about this one. It's my first one published entirely by myself, and I cannot wait to get down to business with it. It's due to go online on December 1.

4. An Arts and Entertainment article for Wilson Living Magazine, due at the end of November. Digging the focus of this one, which you'll just have to wait and read when the December/January edition comes out!

5. Work. (Remember that, Tomi?) The Chronicle gets my number one focus, of course, and I'm working to make it ever better, week by week.

So, although I'll be slammed from every direction - I also have a wedding the weekend of November 7 in Ohio and there's always the Thanksgiving holiday tucked in there - I haven't felt this alive in a while.

It feels like life is taking off and looking up - and like 31 is going to be hell of a ride for me.

On Motherhood: Censorship

I know it's one of the more oft-repeated adages about parenthood, but I feel it must... well, be repeated - at least for me. A lot of the time I need to be smacked upside the face with a log (sometimes repeatedly) before advice sticks to me. And then another couple of times for good measure so I'll actually take the advice. But this is an important one, and luckily, this time, it didn't completely backfire.

I worked/enjoyed the Southern Festival of Books last weekend, and as a board member of the Tennessee Writers Alliance I had the great privilege of co-moderating a panel with two masters of Southern Gothic: Ron Rash and William Gay. They both read and answered questions, and I was impressed with the number of people in the audience: standing room only downstairs, and people in the overflow balcony of the Tennessee House of Representatives chambers, where the panel was held.

William, however, didn't look so good: he seemed to have diminished since I saw him in June. He literally looked smaller, his color was off, and he just didn't seem... stable. He worked his way through his reading and was thrilled when we bestowed upon him the TWA Writer of the Year award.

"I feel like I've won an Oscar," he said, holding the gorgeous crystal award aloft.

The next day there was a screening of the movie adapted from his short story "I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1114680/) After the movie a panel was scheduled, with William and the director/screenplay writer Scott Teems. Scott announced at the beginning that William had fallen ill and returned home.

On Sunday I had the great pleasure of having some one-on-one time with another TWA board member, Dr. Randy Mackin, a professor at MTSU and newspaper editor, like myself. Among other topics of discussion, Randy said that William had collapsed and was taken home. Apparently William had a heart attack recently (last year?), and to my dismay Randy said that if it happened again William wouldn't go to a hospital because he didn't want any doctors poking around in there.

I explained all this to my mother in the car later, with Draper in the backseat. My son asked what was wrong with William Gay (he was familiar with the name: I talked about the writer a lot before and after our writers conference, WordFest, in June, when William held a reading of an excerpt from his upcoming novel, and I was lucky enough to talk with him, Randy, my friend and TWA board member Wes Hutcheson and J. Wes Yoder for hours during the reception at Sherlock's Books in Lebanon). I told Draper that William recently had a heart attack and was sick now, and that I'm worried about him.

Draper's on fall break from preschool this week, and tonight as we waited for my father to come pick him up to spend the night there, Draper asked me why he had to stay with my little sister tomorrow, and where would I be?

"I have to go to work," I answered, "and then go talk to some classes tomorrow."

"My class?"

"No. These are college classes."

"But I want you to talk to my class sometime," he pouted.

I smiled. "I can do that, maybe, sometime. But what would I talk about?"

He shrugged. "Maybe William Gay's heart attack?"

"I hardly think that's appropriate, but I'm impressed that you remembered it."

He nodded, his eyes far off. "How's he doing?"

"William? I don't know, honey."

He walked over and laid his head in my lap, running his hands down my legs. "I hope he's okay. I hope he's okay for you, I wouldn't want you to lose him."

I'm not sure I'll ever get used to my son's insight. I have no frame of reference - I don't know much about kids, much less little boys, so all I have to gauge them by is my own son, but this floored me. Not only did he remember that my friend is sick, but he cares about how it will affect me.

He's a little person. I keep forgetting that. And I'm not sure if I want to censor what I say in front of him so much as to shield him, or if I want him to really know what's going on in my life enough to partake in it, no matter what it is.

Where, and how, does a parent draw that line?