This thing happened on Sunday. I found myself lying splat on my back in my front yard, looking up at the bright blue sky, through the kiwi green leaves of our big big tree, with the sun probing through just enough that I still had to squint. It was spectacular.
Less spectacular: I was still in my pajamas, wearing a hoodie on a hot day, pawing at my recoiling eyes with both hands, and splayed out on the grass like a stranded starfish…with its hood up.
This was not an ordinary hoodie, it was my huge, red, lazy-girl hoodie, from Camp Ukandu, the camp where husby and I met as camp counselors. That was about 16 years ago. And of course, these were not just pajamas; they were my striped Halloween leggings.
In Tanya’s world, this is code for, “depression suit.” Oh, I’ve had many a depression suit over the years, and I always have to rip them from my own clutches, usually under the threat of my husband’s raised eyebrows and slightly forward-tipped posture.
That guy can spot a new depression suit way before I find myself mired in the gloom and damp confetti, and he has rightfully arrived at the land of no tolerance for such attire. Reluctantly, I cast each successor off to Goodwill, secretly hoping they don’t go on to curse the unaware recipient with the horrible suck of a thousand suckfests. I digress.
I think it was the pawing at my eyes, against the sun, as if undead, that woke me up a little. Inside voice helped out with something akin to, “what the f are you wearing?” More alert, drop by drop, it was finally the recognition of my starfish shape that got me back on track, and laughing at myself, kindly.
I looked at the clock on my crackphone. 11:28. Hmm. My daughter had four different plans for the day. She’d recalculated how we might be able to pull them all off, about seven times. I had stalled long enough. I turned my head slightly toward her, the back of one hand now protecting my squinty left eye, and spoke. “Well. (l o n g pause.) Seeing how it’s 11:30 and I’m still in my pajamas, lying here like a dying starfish…”
(l o n g pause number 2.)
She looked at me, and cracked one of her sweet lopsided grins, and nodded her head slowly, as if to the beat of a really great song only she could hear. Then, we stayed home, mom and kids together, and did nothing exuberant at all, outside of laughing.
Until I realized I hadn’t done shit all day, and lunch wasn’t made, and it was past nap time, and both kids were part-feral. And my husband came home and also laughed at me, kindly, with raised eyebrows, and said, “I see you’re still in your pajamas.”
But…oh blissful starfish, how I love you!
