you missed it

on january twenty-first

--- at nine twenty-one p.m. ---

it was the twenty-first minute

of the twenty-first hour

of the twenty-first year

of the twenty-first centrury.

i was there, though. i was scrolling through Facebook, and i just happened to come upon a prophetic meme that told of the coming of the sacred minute.

but what would i do with it?

contemplate my smallness in the grand scheme of bomb defusers

breath holders

egg cookers

(minute watchers)

as the minute crescendoed, i realized that this once-in-a-lifetime sixty

was giving me deja vu

for the god-like potato chip

and the rose that bloomed on my concrete

the same summer of Hailey's comet

when i actually remembered to bring my sales receipt

it was like the time it snowed on Christmas

before my son ate his vegetables

when it was the best of times,

and the worst of times,

and Furbies were collectibes.

it was like once in a blue moon

existential vroom

de ja vu

sorry you missed it

“Be off now.”

Why do I wish so desperately for someone to say this to me? I picture myself leaping from the steps of a wonderfully mush-bodied woman wrapped in fabulously slant-matched fabrics. She hands me a basket of French smells, and I skirt away as if I am one of her textile layers, disembarking from her busy bosom into the roomy breeze.

And I itch.

Being off is so different from going on. And when she tells me this, I know that I will shortly find myself on cobblestone, chugging whiskey, catching the drips from a pirate’s beard so that I may present a proper hangover to my sober self as evidence that I licked the bottom of the barrel, and it was grand.

Where does one find such a woman?

To send you off on adventures? To stomache it with a tsk and emotional shake of her rag before she turns and goes back into the house, to go on? Surely, such archetypes are the most underrated features of every pirate story.

She may be known as Mrs. Fitzgibbons, Nanny, or Bess. She is soft and strong. Nay -- strong by way of soft. And the dutiful sound that her broom makes is the only reason that anyone ever gets to yell into the wind as they swing from the mast of a ship.

In the miliseconds as you approach a stranger

Your brain calculates:

Do their scuffed shoes plus my torn sweater

Equal a full 2 second gaze?

Or should I glance away first?

He is a man...

Subtract my uterus from his masculinity,

And I subvert my gaze,

But this is not new math.

Recalculate.

Then again, if I stare too long,

He may think I am interested,

And that gut is obvious.

20 pounds too many plus my uterus =

I who deserve the lasting look,

But I don't think I want it?

Multiply my shame for judging his weight

By the shine of his teeth as he gives me a confident smile.

He says, "Hi how are you?"

I nod, subvert, and blush.

And he probably things that I am blushing over him,

But I am embarrased that I cannot even solve my own equation.

My 6 year old son sleep-ate a donut,

And my husband got it on camera.

I just watch that video over and over.

It has everything I love most:

My baby's Beatles haircut

- with bonus bedhead -

My husband's Pillsbury Doughboy laugh,

Evidence my son's neurodiverse brain

Will bring him as much fun as it will fight,

And

An inherited passion for donuts.