Tim is hiding in the mattress-box in the bedroom recording and re-recording songs that need to go out as demos and rehearsing for his Saturday auditions for the upcoming NBC reality show, "Sing Off" (which he is auditioning for no less than FIVE times singing 3 different voice parts in 5 different groups).
In half English, half Benjamese, Benji is filling in the dialogue and songs for "Aristocats" because the speakers are turned off and he doesn't know how to turn them on. He's getting the sound effects, too, but mixing some of the lyrics. "Everybody. Everybody. Everybody wants to sit down in the finking chair and fink, fink fiiiiiiiiiink. Everybody wants to be a cat." I noticed he was doing this when I heard him over there saying, "Swinger. Swinger? Swinger." If you've seen "Aristicats" you know what he's talking about.
Caleb is playing Mario fangames online, trying to get ideas for his own games that he is making on the computer, or possibly making a walk-through to post on YouTube. He's only just 8, but this is his favorite thing--to make games and teach others how to play them.
Anda, age 6, talking babytalk, is discussing motifs from literature, infusing characters and situations from her favorite novels and shows (Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia, and "Cyberchase") into Caleb's game (they frequently do running commentaries--like duo short story writing--explaining the fiction--plots and motivations--behind why the little figure on the screen is jumping on platforms) while she draws "the Cybersquad".
Daniel is preparing to "start school" for the day--he is 4, but just entered first grade. It's cute to see him doing introductory transformational geometry with his baba in his mouth and his favorite stuffed animals gathered around his feet.
Nathanael, 8 months, is alternately trying to pull the characters out of the tv, eat a sock, and try to use the mouse to click on things on Caleb's computer.
And I am blogging, finishing up the final details on an art quilt AND on the next section of my novel at the same time, and realizing that I like life this way. And also that we are weird.
But I like us weird. I don't particularly want to be more normal.
So why do I spend so much time longing for a normal life? Perhaps it's time to accept what we have and enjoy it instead of spending so much time wondering when we get to settle down and be like other people.
We're never going to be like other people.
But there are plenty of people to fill that role.
And not so many to fill ours.
So we're gypsies.
Maybe that's what we were meant to be?
1 comment:
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
I recently read a novel where the main character talked about how she occasionally found herself envious of the lives of people that she knew, lives that she knew for a fact she would hate. I think we all do this, we have our own lives that we may really love, but we still have our own problems and then we look at something else and at least part of us thinks that that would be nice. Even when we know that it wouldn't.
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