Four hundred and twenty blackbirds just flew into the trees
outside my window. I ran to the sunroom and opened the door to hear the cry of
the birds accompanied by the sound of displaced acorns falling on the patio.
I’ve never seen this before.
“There’s a first time for everything.” Remember when someone said this to you as a
kid? The context was never good. You had
left your guitar at home and Sister Juanita was mad at you. You had just been bit by Hot Diggity Dog and
blood was seeping through your shirt.
You had gotten your first B from Ms. Pica in typing class and you saw
your GPA plummeting for a business course your mom said you had to take but
Madame Danzig said should have been sacrificed for German.
You’ve stayed up all night before. It’s preferably with a lover and preferably
not with a sick child who wants you to read The Guest Who Threw Tomatoes over
and over until dawn. This week I stayed
up all night with a dog, only to take her to the ER at six in the morning. A first.
There’s a first time for everything.
There is a first time for everything. Just sometimes though,
there will come that first time for something that will be glorious. It will be splendid. And if it happens at a certain age when you
think first times will not send you, you will be doubly blessed.
I’ve had some notable first times recently. One came last night.
I was in my office, editing, when an e came in at
nine-thirty from my son. The subject
line was “wrote this for english” (sic). It was a poem, his first.
My son, how did you know which words to capitalize? My son, how did you know about
structure? My son, where do these deep
thoughts reside when you are walking through the house shuffling a deck of
cards with a blank look on your face?
To my son, who used to tell children, “My mom is a writer
but I can’t write”: You were wrong. But
don’t worry, there’s a first time for everything. And I hope that in the balance, most of them
are splendid.
All your life/
You were only waiting
for this moment to arise
Lennon-McCartney
