the healing power of hooky

The view from our front window (a picture window--all the 70s colonials seem to have them here) is a line of pine trees planted to obscure some kind of retaining pond.  This morning the sun seemed to burst as it crested our little treeline.  Lovely morning.  Lovely day--the boys were cooperative and we made it to school just in time.  Today also brought two pieces of unhappy news my way--one was (yet another) rejection letter from yet another employer.  The other is a little too personal to post here, but it hit me like a medicine ball to the stomach.  Cue the tears. 

I had big plans for moping, wallowing and watching Dying Young or some such thing.  Luckily I sent out a signal flare before things got too bad.  Luckily I got a response and then found myself at a movie theater with Junior Mints and everything in the middle of the day watching the simultaneous rise and fall of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. 

Here is where I offer a wholehearted endorsement of hooky as a general palliative--even though it doesn't cure the disease, it addresses the symptoms in such a satisfactory way.  My mom knew this when we were growing up, I think.  There were days where I didn't have it in me to face one more day of school and its attendant horrors (the kid who threw rocks at me all the way home, the kid who told me I was voted "Ugliest Girl," Pre-Algebra, etc).  Sometimes she just let me stay home.  Mornings were PBS and toast, then soup and I Love Lucy to follow.  We folded laundry, I helped with the baby.  I read chapter books and practiced drawing unicorns.  And the next day was better--I could pull on those Garanimals and Keds and walk with purpose toward Fuller Elementary, ready to take on whatever it was dishing out.