I know. I know. I profess my distaste for the exclamation point and then I use it over and over. But here it is warranted! Why, you ask? Because after 3.2 decades of whining about how I do not cook but that I would like to, I am finally cooking! (See Evidence A above.) Okay, I did not think about cooking much for the first two decades of my lovely life, but you get the picture.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about change. About how there are some things in my life that I would like to alter. About how there is a certain way I would like to look and feel and a certain kind of example I would like to set for my girls. Obviously, these are big deals – looking, feeling, modeling – but in a decidedly practical un-Aidan way of tackling things, I decided to break it down. To conjure a list. Of real things I can and am willing to change.

And so. Just like that, I started cooking. We started cooking. I started making trips to the store and buying fresh ingredients. I started hunting down recipes and even making some up. I just went for it. And in the past month? We have barely ordered takeout. We have grilled and roasted and sauteed and steamed. We have collected sauces and spices. We have made an important change. One I’m really happy about.

There have been many yummy meals. Quinoa, farro, tilapia, cod, chicken, brussels sprouts, beets, burgers… And lots of summer corn. We even made a little BBQ chicken and blue cheese pizza. Now, let’s be real. I did not morph into Martha Stewart during my time away. But. We are doing things differently around here. And it feels good. It does. It is really good to know that change is possible, that habits really can be broken.

So. How long will we keep this up? I don’t know. I’m sure there will be plenty of nights of ordering in ahead of us, but I think we are headed in a good direction. Kind of a boring, feel-goody post, huh? Yup. Oh well. I can’t be edgy and existential all the time Now, I’m off to the store to stock up on supplies for din.

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Do you believe change is possible? Do you cook? Do you think I will keep up this cooking thing or is it just a passing phase?

“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”

Mark Twain

Big Girl and Middle Girl. One Saturday morning, I take them for tea. Well, not really. Really, I take them for banana bread and berries and chocolate milk served in an exquisite and consummately breakable “kitty” tea pot. The place – Alice’s Tea Cup – is one of our favorites. Because of Little Girl’s arrival, we haven’t been there in a while and the girls are excited. Upon arrival, a kind waiter hands them each a pair of fairy wings. With my help, they slide their little arms through the rubber bands, all smiles.

We settle at a small table in the middle of the restaurant. Middle Girl refuses her high chair. Yet another sign that she is growing up. The girls sit together in the booth. Behind them, their wings dance as they bounce and bellow silly, made-up songs. A waitress comes. I order in a hurry knowing that our time in this quaint haven is limited. The waitress places three tea cups down in front of us. My instinct is to pull the girls’ cups away and ask for plastic, but this time I leave them there. And watch.

Once upon a time, they might have grabbed these cups and knocked them on the table. But this time, they sit back. Middle Girl studies her cup. Her eyes twinkle. She says something.

Mama, she says.

Yes, sweets?

This, she says, blues eyes big, fingers tracing the curved handle of her cup. This is not a trophy!

For some reason – maybe it’s her delivery, or her tiny size, or the inflection in her still-baby voice – this strikes us as absolutely hilarious. The three of us Rowley girls erupt into messy, too-loud-for-a-restaurant laughter. I had no idea she knew the word trophy. I had no idea she was so funny.

I am flooded with questions: When is humor born? Is it inherited or acquired? What makes someone funny?

And I have no answers. But I am thankful for another good moment and another good laugh, for little girls wearing wings, for that little cup. For the trophy that is family.

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Are you funny? Do you think humor is hard-wired or learned? Are your children funny? Is there anything objective about humor or is it entirely relative?

Since publishing my first novel Life After Yes last May, I have been asked the same question over and over: How autobiographical is the story? And even though I’ve had plenty of time to come up with a good and satisfying answer to this one, I tend to bumble my way through my response every time. I say something along the lines of: There are bits and pieces of me in the book – of course there are – but no one character in it is me or someone I know. And the story is totally imagined even if aspects of it do come from my life or experience.

This is all true. What I love about writing fiction is that I am allowed to draw from what I have lived and what I know while making stuff up.

I recently finished a wonderful novel called The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst wherein the protagonist Octavia Frost is herself an acclaimed novelist. Here and there, Octavia muses on the experience of being a novelist, of having a writer’s soul. And she says something that really struck me.

…There’s an analogy I came up with once for an interviewer who asked me how much of my material was autobiographical. I said that the life experience of a fiction writer is like butter in cookie dough: it’s a crucial part of flavor and texture — you certainly couldn’t leave it out — but if you’ve done it right, it can’t be discerned as a separate element. There shouldn’t be a place that anyone can point to and say, There — she’s talking about her miscarriage, or Look — he wrote that because his wife had an affair.

The Nobodies Album, Carolyn Parkhurst, p. 153

Yes. Yes. Yes. She (Octavia? Carolyn?) has nailed it as far as I’m concerned. The fiction author’s personal experience is an ingredient, a vital one, to the recipe of the story, but it cannot be, and should not be, detectable as such.

Like butter in cookie dough.

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Do you ever find answers to your life questions embedded in the books you read? When you read a novel or other piece of fiction do you ever assume that it is autobiographical? How much of your own life experience do you put into your work (writing or other)? Anyone else a big fan of cookie dough?

Bedtime. Husband and I are with the girls in their purple room. We negotiate pajamas and toothbrushes and storybooks. Per usual, the girls bide their time, running around, concocting fictional games to delay our nightly rituals.

We make soft threats. If you don’t put your pajamas on now, there will be no stories before bed.

Toddler ignores this and races to the corner of her room. Pulls her plastic laptop from the shelf. She brings it over, places it on the foot of her bed, and pries it open.

I need to order dinner, she says.

Uh oh. I look at Husband. We both crack a silent smile.

But your kitchen is over there, Husband says, pointing to their elaborate red wood play kitchen in the corner. You can make some dinner over there.

Not to be deterred, Toddler stays focused on the screen and pounds away at the keyboard. What do you want to eat tonight? She asks.

Oh boy. Here we go. As I have mentioned once or twice on this blog, I am not a good cook. And when I say I am not a good cook, I mean I do not cook. At all. Ever. This is terrible. I know. Worse than terrible. Most nights of the week, Husband and I pry open that laptop, peruse online menus, and order dinner. And then dinner arrives in a jiffy and we eat it.

Guess the kiddos have been watching. And listening.

Finally, we separate Toddler from her laptop and convince her to brush her teeth. But then. Out of the corner of my eye, I see it. Baby sitting on the floor. Hunched over the same plastic computer in a fit of intense concentration.

I need to order some food, Baby says. What do you guys want to drink?

Oh goodness. It’s time to get my act together, huh?

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Do you ever think about how your behaviors influence your children or how your parents’ patterns influenced you? How often do you cook? What are some habits of yours of which you are less than proud? Have I already produced a pair of individuals who will subsist wholly on takeout or is there still hope?

Toddler. She’s had a few rough days at school. Days smudged with uncharacteristic tears. It’s all a guessing game of course, but my hunch? She knows what’s coming. A tiny creature that will necessarily take me away. And I get it. I am having a hard time with the change that’s ahead. I can’t imagine how it would be if I were four.

I pick her up from school. And instead of whisking her home so I can get some writing done, I ask: Do you want to have lunch with Mommy?

Her eyes light up.

And soon. We are across from each other in a small booth. She munches her dinosaur nuggets as I tuck into my grilled cheese. She talks and talks. About her day. About school. About the silly kids in her class. And when we are finished, we walk. Along the city streets, toward home.

We stop in a little boutique. I find some brightly-colored burp cloths for the baby. Toddler spots it. The tutu. It’s mint green and enormous. And then we hear it: That comes in a bunch of colors.

Even purple? I ask.

It comes in purple. Her favorite color in the world. And soon. My little girl is wearing it. The vast purple tutu. Over her school clothes. With her beloved dinosaur hat. I don’t think twice. I buy it.

And she wears it home. Skipping on concrete. Leaving a splendid shadow. I jog to keep up.

She pauses to climb the mountains of soiled snow. Be careful, I whisper.

And she walks. Up ahead. Twirling in purple away from me. A beautiful and improbable image.

I catch up. And I tell her to look at me. To listen to me. I tell her that I love her new purple tutu. And then I tell her something she hears all the time. But on this day, on our afternoon, our just us afternoon, I think she really hears it.

I love you. You.

Her smile is grand. Glorious. As grand and glorious as that regal purple skirt that shimmies as she runs from me.

And I watch her go, trotting behind. And something occurs to me. Something simple and profound.

She needed this afternoon. And I did too.

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Are you good about spending one-on-one time with your little creatures or other loved ones? Has it ever occurred to you that you need them as much as they need you? Do you recall meaningful time spent one-on-one with your mother or father?  Do you think there is anything wrong with the wildly impulsive purchase of a purple tutu?