Years ago, I got a lot of giggles from a little cartoon called “Making Fiends.” The show featured two little elementary school girls who couldn’t be more opposite in their inherent natures. Charlotte was an overly bubbly, perfectly happy, “Pollyanna” type who was absolutely oblivious to any negativity, and Vendetta was an evil, cranky, manipulative, angry little witch who created havoc wherever she went. For some reason this show just tickled me. I think that this is because on any given day, I could relate to either one of them, at some level. Today when I was looking up memes for my Monday blog post I found one that Charlotte would have posted:
And then I found one that Vendetta would have posted:
If you need a little goofiness in your day, here’s a little “Making Fiends” short to enjoy:
See you tomorrow, fiends (I mean, friends)!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
We had another setback yesterday, with my youngest son’s epilepsy. My son is okay, thankfully, so that is what really matters the most. Lately, when I offer a gargantuan pile of advice, or pepper this particular son with questions (like I have a tendency to do with all of my children and loved ones – thank you for still loving me), he likes to sing his answers back to me. It is sort of like a warning sign, like a dog growling. And it’s hilarious. The very off-key, fervent singing usually breaks the tension, and while it annoys me and amuses me in equal parts, it also reminds me how much I love my children and each of their unique personalities and their ways of being, in my world and in the whole world, in general. That is why days like yesterday are so stomach pitting-ly tough. There is nothing stronger, yet at the same time more vulnerable, than a mother’s heart. When you have days that force you to confront the idea that your strong, vital heart could be instantly shattered, at any moment or at any time, the fear that you feel is overwhelmingly ferocious. I read something recently, which suggested that we women have a lot of our parts and our essence made out of silk. Like silk, we look feminine and delicate and fragile, but here are the real facts:
“Quantitatively, spider silk is five times stronger than steel of the same diameter. It has been suggested that a Boeing 747 could be stopped in flight by a single pencil-width strand and spider silk is almost as strong as Kevlar, the toughest man-made polymer.” (www.chm.bris.ac.uk)
It turns out that we women are really made of gorgeous, silky steel. Don’t we know it! Charlotte, the teeny, tiny “fragile” spider, really was the strongest character in all of our childhood tales. A tiny, knowing, beautiful, wise, feminine spider, spun her messages in silk. Her love and her gift to the world was her silken word, and her safe, silken nest, where her babies grew and came to life.
