In the Woods
(This is from earlier this year.)
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Memories
The Fewcher
It was my least favorite question in school. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
On one occasion, I remember being forced (forced!) to draw what I pictured my life to look like … in … the … few … cher-er-er. (Echoes.) If I had had the sense of humor I now claim to have, I would have drawn someone who was capable of drawing. Maybe I would have drawn someone holding a board with many colors on it. The person would be wearing a smock. And a beret. (That was how Mr. V—, our art teacher in elementary school, dressed. It was almost a parody of a cliché of someone’s parodied cliché of what an artist looks like.) The caption to my drawing would have stated that I hoped I would be able to draw when I was a grown-up.
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Me and Mr. Claus
I know Santa Claus, which I know sounds like a tall tale …
I do not remember the moment I learned that the many Misters and Missuses Claus that we encountered in person or saw on TV were “not real”; the fact that there was no “a-ha” moment leads me to assume that I never bought the story. Maybe so, maybe not. There is at least one photo of my sister and me in a “portrait with Santa,” and I remember the typical session. I knew, just knew, that the fellow was not Santa, and I did not feel betrayed by this; I knew it was a guy overheating indoors in a snowsuit for reasons related to “things grown-ups do.” It did not make much sense to me, to be a grown-up wearing a snowsuit indoors, but I did not envy adults the many things that they did, said, claimed, acted as if, and always eventually emphatically insisted made sense.
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The Gad About Town 