Huh

After a birthday party we received a thank you note from three year old Brynne.  I am sure there is nothing more beautiful and curious to me than a flower drawn by a three year old.  Bold and bright pink.  Species undeterminable.  This pink and ruby flower took up one third of the page.  There was an animal floating VanGogh-ishly in the right hand corner.  Tiny animal.  A cat??  And large orange letters taking up the rest of the page.  MIR MIR.

Mir mir?  Chris and I stared at it.  Huh.

“Meow.  Meow.” ??  I ask.

I think it’s a cat.  On the back side of the “card” is the Mom’s yellow sticky note.  It says “Brynne”:   “thank you very much for the American Girl doll.  It was so kind and generous of you.”

I flip the card over again.  Mir Mir.   I don’t believe the Mom’s sticky note interpretation for a minute.

A spirit lives in a child’s drawing.  It lasts on the page forever.  It’s essence flies off the page and follows the child, even when we can’t see it yet in the kids who draw it.

I open boxes of report cards, art projects, Mother’s Day cards made in grade school and I see the spirit of my boys.  Spirits that back then - I didn’t know fully.  Huh, I think.

Last week a girl’s trip to Nashville to celebrate our neighbor Diana’s 60th birthday.  Little did we know that the only weekend we could all coordinate also happened to be CMA fest.  So. There we were with 500,000 other celebrators in the 90 degree heat.

Diana is my “new soul” friend.  Everything is interesting, fascinating to Diana. She is a Girl/Woman with a capital G and W and has taught me (a brothers only sibling and then boys only mom) much about being a girl.  Simple stuff.  Like shoes are everything.  And you compliment your friends on clothes/ hair/accomplishments each time you greet.  In my boy world if you saw a friend with a new top on - the biggest compliment would be “Where’d you get that?”

Diana is fun.  She will try anything with you.  CMA fest going on and a little crazy?  She is IN.  And the first time someone in our group said “huh” in Nashville….(which happens A LOT- take notice this week), she said it was her family’s new favorite word.

The wonderful word of HUH.  So many meanings.

Sitting on the lawn at the Runaway June’s (check them out NOW) concert at Riverside Park - pure sunshine and 95 humid Nashville degrees - a large black service dog with a coat on….

Huh.  We say.  (Judgmental huh).

Tasting practically everything on the menu at Husk, repeatedly saying Huh…..

-spring lettuces, fennel, turmeric, blossoms, benne.  Huh (brilliant idea huh).

-heritage pork and alligator meatballs.  Huh (not so sure but maybe I’ll try if you do huh).

Going to the Dolly Parton exhibit and finding out she is involved in just about any business venture and goodness you can think of.  Huh (fascinated, admiring huh).

Listening to country singer Puddin’ sing about “buckle bunnies.”  Huh (what the heck huh).   Followed by someone googling buckle bunnies’ meaning.  Huh (ew huh).

Crowd-watching the other half million people there.  Lots of miscellaneous Huhs meaning many, many things.

One night we played a card game that asked us questions.  Some silly.  Some deep.  One questioned us whether our older self would tell our younger self to do something differently. A different path than what we ended up doing in life.

Huh.  We all said.

Of course we all had an answer to that.  We all had made some sort of decision along the way and wished we hadn’t.   But this group of friends is tight.  And generous.  And we know how to push each other toward dreams that may have not happened yet.

Is that still possible?  Huh.

The dream huh.  Which is the deep beauty of the word huh.  It is definitely vocab for a young soul like Diana.  But what about the rest of us?  Do we still do the dream huh?  If I  could look at the pictures I drew in Kindergarten would I see my spirit? Did I lose track of my spirit along the way?  Or would I give the pleasantly surprised Huh?

My dream huh friends.