Prime Target

There are days when you realize your hands are full of so much good fortune that Zeus (or whoever) must surely be up in his cloudy realm leveling a lightning bolt at you just to even things out.  For me Thursday was one of those days.

My husband stayed home sick and so was right next to me when I opened the email from the agent requesting my full.  That was definitely one of those Defying Gravity moments, made all the better by the fact that I was able to fully share it with my very best friend and number one supporter.

A few moments laters, perhaps woken by all the hullabaloo going on below her, our daughter got up from her nap.  I'm still not entirely sure how it came about, but somehow, less than ten minutes later I sat on a little plastic pink chair with a dress up veil on my head and a number of preciouses (what my daughter calls jewelry) draped in various unique ways over my person.  Across the hot pink storage bin in which my daughter's toys reside, she sat on another little pink chair.  She wore a blue crushed velvet leotard with a long, slightly ragged light blue tutu and black patent leather shoes.  On her head rested a second veil.  Bringing the whole outfit together was the hot pink and purple Barbie purse dangling from its silver bead strap which rested on her shoulder. 

To my right sat my husband trussed out in the headdress of a medaevil princess (the only thing that fit on his large noggin).  He held a little light pink and silver purse in one hand, and in the other, pinky tilted up and all, he gripped a tiny pink teacup. 

Last night I was reading Night Watch  by Sarah Waters and she described one of her character's emotion as rising up like bread dough.  I really liked that and I'm going to steal it. I nibbled on the plastic chocolate cookie my daughter gave me and watched her ask her father if he would want a cookie 'darling'.  He and I exchanged glances and small smiles over her chubby little hand which was proferring him the cookies on their rose imprinted yellow plate.  And my bread dough of happiness which usually stays so small and tractable and easily forgotten somewhere in the region of my heart expanded to such significant proportions that some of it had to leak out of my eyes so I didn't burst. 

If that lightning bolt hits, perhaps in the form of a rejection (which, really, given all the things I stand to lose, would be the outcome easiest to cope with and overcome) I'm still so thankful that, for one incandescent moment, I was fully conscious of how lucky I am and how much I have to be thankful for.