Potato Frog

Since I can't seem to force myself to write anything of meaning, anything structured, anything resembling those topics I've wanted to write about, I'm just going to write, and see what happens.

Yesterday, I took the Impling out into the remnants of a nor'easter and walked a block to mile 24 of the Boston Marathon.

There, bouncing to the beat of Gloria Naylor, James Brown, and the inevitable chorus of “Dirty Water”, we watched men and women pound the pavement as they ran by, their faces revealing various stages of agony and determination. One woman half trotted, in obvious pain, her mouth hidden by a worn shaggy glove she pressed to her face. A futile attempt to mask her tears and anguish. But she kept going, and the voices surrounding her called out in praise and encouragement. It was hard to tell if the voices were helping or hindering her, but regardless,
she kept going. I hope she made it those final 2 miles. I like to think she did.

All that determination, all that grit in the face of physical pain, spoke to me. It showed me people who had achieved something remarkable. It made me jealous. I felt like a part of me that might achieve something remarkable is hobbled...by my motherhood, by my insecurities, by my fear of failure, by my own choices. If I had time, I tell myself, if I had space and quiet and freedom to write and focus and lose myself in my work, instead of having half the attention, one ear cocked for the Impling, what could I achieve? I want to think I could...can...create something remarkable.

And now I think, if I didn't have that one ear listening for the Impling, would it be the same? Would I have what little insight I have without her? Without this increasing weight, warm and wiggly, on my lap right now as I type, chanting: “pictures of a potato-frog” what would I be doing, thinking, writing? She grins at me. “It's going to be a potato-frog!” she laughs. Whimsical, out of the ether, launching me out of my train of thought to a universe where anything can happen, or be. Like potato frogs. It is simultaneously delightful and achingly frustrating.

I am suffering from a bad case of the “what if's”

Any ideas for a cure?

“pah! tay! toh! FROOOOG!”

All hail...