When I was young, my mother told me
I could not be a writer
because my spelling was so bad.
And at that time I had a triggering flashback
to flashcards, a discouraging word per card,
but also the horrors of multiplication and the ordeal
of long division. A few years later…
I read all about F. Scott Fitzgarald Fitzgerald,
a “lamentable speller,” a man who gave grounds
for actual lamenting due to his miscellany of miscellaneous.
And I returned to my mother and said
“ha!” and “so there!” and “hencforth
hencefourth from now on I will
mispell misspell my way into this side of paradise!”
But spelling is history, we know, and not just the history
of our spelling, but the history of what we thought,
and who we thought we were.
And I have a veratable veretable veritabal
bona fide list of things I am no good at:
spelling, riddles, puzzles, “word problems”
which are actually math problems,
although you could argue I have word problems, two.
Regardless, last Friday after a glass of wine, or too,
I solved like seven goddanm puzzles with Natalie.
It was like I became another person
and Natalie would say things like “you’re very smart”
and I would say things like “well, we work very well together.”
As an asside asid a-side, I digress–
these are the things I am good at,
(and I’m pretty sure my mother would agree):
arguing, swearing, deflecting compliments.
The thing is one day my mother will be gone,
never to again harrange horange harang,
never to harras harrass haras,
never to pester me again about this spelling thing.
And that will be said,
I mean sad.