whitefingers's Journal

and they ROARRRRRED their terrible roars!
and they gnashed their TERRIBLE TEETH!
and they ROOOOOOLLLED their terrible eyes!
and showed their TERRIBLE CLAWSSSSAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!
I'm paraphrasing... That's how I read it to my kids, and I always raise my hand into a claw and dig it into their bellies ARRRRGGHHHH!!!

Took them to see the movie last weekend. For me, when I was a kid, the book was... just magic, and I was Max, chasing a dog with a fork, and then sailing in and out of a weeks, and almost over a year...

The movie was so strange and gritty and full of childlike things, things that only make sense if you're using your child-mind...
 
We came home that day after the movie, it was sunny, and the leaves were ridiculous colors, oranges and reds and yellows and that pale yellow-green... and the movie had swept me up and carried me away so that I just felt like I had to run through the woods and WOOP and HOWL and, well, let's call it what it was, I had to GET MY WILD RUMPUS ON!!!

Usually I have to "convince" (plead, beg, threaten...) my kids and husband to take a walk in the woods, but this time, it was like we were all caught up in it together. We all rushed the door, and the dogs too, the dogs were so excited...

We ran, down, down, down into the hollow, and we WOOPED, seriously, we WOOPED and HOWLED, every single one of us, like a bunch of... WILD THINGS!!

I ran so hard down the steep part of the path, my legs did that cartoon WHEELIE thing!!! And I felt like, if I run into a tree at this speed I will surely die! But what a way to go!

My son, he's 11, this is the funny part, to me, my son had grabbed up a copy of the BOOK, and took it with us, so that he could... I don't know... he would run up ahead of us, and stop in the path, bend down, and reference the book! He was so into it! Nobody said, hey, let's go have a wild rumpus, let's go be wild things in the woods, but he knew that's what we were all doing. And he wanted to have his references correct! HAR!!!

But my point, and I do have one, my point is this: I was silly and goofy and wild, and I was sober. My husband was sober. We were like kids again, and it was really US, not booze-fueled sentimental silliness. I'm grateful for that, to be in touch with ME again, the me that I was before I got lost, (I promised myself I wouldn't use the term "inner child"), and to let my kids see it, that I still know how to play...

Just felt like sharing, thanks for reading, if you made it this far. I'm not on a pink cloud. The rest of my life is in the shitter pretty much. Which is why I have to remember to stop and smell the roses, when they occur... Now if you'll excuse me, I have a fork, and a dog that needs chasin'...