Me and Joy were sitting around one day and talking about really stupid advice we'd been given in our lifetimes and the talk drifted into old sayings -- old sayings we didn't say the way they'd been said.
"Don't get above your raising..." I said I wanted my kids to get above their raising. Why would I want them to stay poor and wearing hand-me-downs and cowtowing to some second-hand religion. No way! Get above your raising!
Joy said she stopped telling her kids to "be careful". She said that was a terrible thing to tell your kids -- to be full of care. She started telling them "don't be careful!" To have fun!
And neither one of us could figure out if "look before you leap" was the best advice or if "he who hesitates is lost" was better.
What about "a bird in the hand..." Is it really worth two in the bush? Birds in the bush would mean wild birds, free as the wind. Birds in the hand would be trained not to fly so high and to come when called and to work for handouts.
A "stitch in time" made sense but the phrase didn't escape our poetica -- it became "stitchin' time" and evoked images of circles of women sitting around a big quilt, swapping tall tales, memories, anecdotes, snippets of dreams, and making jokes about the menfolk. Maybe they'd call themselves the "Stitch and Thyme" Women's Circle. Or maybe they'd all go skinnydipping out behind the church, in the river they used for baptisings, and they wouldn't have a stitch on anytime.
And mind you, Joy and I didn't drink. We just loved our word games.
It occurred to me today that I hadn't seen Joy since October 15, 2007. She and Mel had come to spend the night in the apartment overtop All About Beauty. We had an all night writer's meeting and word wrangler's party. That apartment was not a good place for sleeping, but it was inspirational.
1 comment:
Enjoyed reading all the old sayings and thought it was great how you turned them around and made them to your liking.
I wish I had known Joy.
B
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