More Moments

What it means to be six
An adorable boy: honey-skinned, gap-toothed smile, hazel eyes, wheat-colored hair in cornrows.  He runs up to me because even though I hadn't seen him in a very long while, he remembered me.  Clinging to me like a koala, burying his face in my neck.  "I miss you!"  Moving him side to side in a bear hug.  "I miss you, too!"  When I put him down, a crowd of women (who are marveling at how big he's gotten) hover over him as he announces the following: "I'm six!  I'm big! I can do a front flip and a back flip!"

Iceland
Pandora is a mixed bag.  It thinks it knows what you like, and sometimes it does.  Sometimes it doesn't.  But this time it did.  Of Monsters and Men.  An absolutely charming folk group from Iceland.  I fell in love.  And I was reminded about Iceland and my curiosity about it.  It's my secret place I want to go, a place to which no one would imagine going on their honeymoon, but that I do.  I imagine it as lovely and strange, darkly romantic, full of charm and haunting, rare beauty.  A lonely, cold, wistful, sweetly melancholy place that would welcome you with open arms to explore it.

Post-symposium blues
A(nother) professor who lights up the nerd center of my brain.  Symposium at the new rare books library. She's presenting with a collaborator, come if you're interested.  At 9 a.m. on a Saturday, most of my classmates weren't.  But I had to.  The reasons boil down to a special concentration of uber-nerdiousness, professor worship, and knowledge that she was presenting on a topic on which I was writing my final paper.  The Battle of Lepanto.  The epic poem writer in Latin, the black former slave Juan Latino.  I went.  She didn't use a microphone so, "Let me know if you can't hear me back there, Chantell."  (Another way of saying, "I noticed your presence"?)  All bodies and eyes momentarily bent towards me.  A fleeting feeling of wanting to disappear, but onward.  Wonderful, well-done, footnote stories of research and collaborations and rooting through obscure archives and getting published by the I Tatti Renaissance Library of Harvard.  Impressive.  A tearful drive home because I listened to something telling me that I would never be able to do what she does.

I guess I should wear my hair up more often, but . . . 
We were having a Christmas celebration Sunday night.  Invite lots of people!  (I invited someone and he was set to come, but a few hours before, texted his regrets.)  We were wearing our choir robes that night (a rarity, a specialty), so hair up, ladies!  I guess it had been a while since I took the time to curl and twist and pin my hair in an up-do, but I did that night.  When I walked in, you'd think I had worn a neon green burqa because of people's looks of surprise.  Your hair!  It's SO nice!  Wow, I didn't even recognize you at first!  You look SO pretty with your hair like that!  I mean, thanks, guys.  Wow.  I was very flattered.  I guess I'll wear it up more often.  But . . . I couldn't help but wonder, was my hair just looking to' up pre-up-do?