Just Routine: Foundations

When I was little, I never stopped moving.

I always had some grand plan, some new game to play. I was on the baseball team, the swim team, the volleyball team, basketball, cheerleading, dance, gymnastics (until I was deemed too tall)–even one season on track and field (fourth place in the long jump! out of maybe five people! woo!) I tried to start my own Babysitter’s Club and entered every talent show. I wrote stories and wandered in the woods behind my house, my head sparking nonstop with ideas. My feet were tough from going barefoot, and my parents couldn’t persuade me not to swim in the icy cold lake even when my lips turned blue.

Now there are days when, left to my own devices, it doesn’t even occur to me to go outside.

Advertisement

I Apply My Personality in a Paste.

–I apply my personality in a paste.

–Oh, I doubt that very much.

–Well, you don’t know me. Do you.

(Clementine and Joel, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

If you know me personally, you might have noticed a pattern: when I’m in a low spot, I do something dramatic to my hair. Often, I chop it. Sometimes it’s dye. This time, with a baby biting my arm and a preschooler trying to run away from me in the store, I grabbed a box of blackish purple. None of the photos I’ve taken so far have really done it justice, but believe me, the purple comes through.