What's black and white and read all over?

In honor of Black History Month, I picked up a very heavy anthology of Uncle Remus tales at the library last week. Actually, that's not entirely true. I picked up Uncle Remus THEN remembered it was Black History Month. THEN I realized that Joel Chandler Harris isn't even black. THEN I realized that this particular anthology is a "re-telling" of the stories to try to make Uncle Remus a little less enthusiastic about his status as a slave. So, even though it was all so convoluted at that point, I decided we'd read a few stories about old Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox anyway. Then Harper asked what "Brer" means and I said, "I think it means 'briar,'" and Hudson said, "These stories are not proper English!" and I conceded they really weren't. And then yesterday I heard them playing a game in Harper's room that sounded kind of violent, and they had made up a song to go along with the violence. It went something like "Let's beat UP that TAR BABY and feed him an air sandwich!!YEAH YEAH YEAH!!" and I began to really question my ability to school my own children. Maybe tomorrow calls for a quietly reverent reading of "I Have a Dream" while everyone knits or does watercolors of children who are beige and also brown and maybe even purple.

Harper has been taking a gymnastics class, and we go and wait in the noisy waiting area for an hour and fifteen minutes every Monday while she fulfills her dreams of Real Gymnastics. Her cartwheel is slightly improved and she enjoys the trampoline. She believes she is improving by literal leaps and bounds, which is important, I suppose. Anyway, last week there was a little fellow named Sawyer and another little fellow named Finn in the waiting area. Which reminded me of this skit my friend Jessica and I did in the sixth grade. She was Tom and I was Huck. We wore overalls, painted on some freckles and dirt, and memorized a few pages of dialogue out of Tom Sawyer. We went barefoot and acted it out in front of our class (NOT for Black History Month), using very Southern drawls (which is funny considering a couple of 11 year olds from Port Neches, Texas, probably had plenty of drawl just using our normal speaking voices). The little scene we acted out just happened to have the 'n' word in it. More than once. I still remember feeling distinctly squeamish about having to say that word out loud, even though it was right there in this famous book. And I feel certain poor Mrs. Bennett was rather aghast. At least we didn't beat up a Tar Baby. And then write a song about it.

I did lots of cleaning today and the casual observer wouldn't be able to tell, even though my mouth tastes faintly of Comet (I've been trying to be more natural and use baking soda, but today's filth requires chemicals in large amounts.) It's a pity that the husband really values tidiness, and I really value cleanliness, because there is rarely time for both. I washed sheets and cleaned bathrooms. I swiffered two rooms and did four loads of laundry. I vacuumed. I scrubbed the kitchen sink. And yet, the coffee table is still covered in books. And my desk is a mess of papers and books all piled up. And there are stacks of folded clothes all over our room. You know why Ma Ingalls didn't have a cluttered house? Because everyone had one, maybe two sets of clothes. They each had a single cup, a single plate, and (I think) a fork--maybe a spork? One or two pots for cooking. No sink to clean, no toilet or shower to scrub. Very few (if any) books. Which means there was no need for a dishwasher. Or closets. Or bookshelves. Or a toilet brush. These are the things I think about while I'm loading the dishwasher. I'm reading an Anne Lamott book and she refers to herself and her baby son as "The Joads" when their house is overwhelmingly dirty and messy and it's making her feel especially blue (which is OFTEN). I get that. We are sometimes the Joads.

I'd read this quote somewhere before, but needed Ms. Lamott to remind me of it today: "Boy, was that nutty old Mother Teresa right when she said that none of us can do great things, but that we can do small things with great love." I'm going to repeat it to myself like a mantra: small things, great love..small things, great love.

Those are Hudson's toes. Newly rinsed after a good mud squishing.