Some sleepless nights in a row, and a deadline, but still I got out Rhiannon’s story last night and read before bed. Pwyll is back from the land of the dead. With Rhiannon and Arawn’s help, he withstood the despair and darkness, and also resisted the darkness within himself, the urge to murder. He saved the world from the forces that would kill the sacred mother and turn men into soulless tools of violence…
Just to sum up.
Now, he’s back, and things go so well! Two calves to every cow!! Record crops!! Etc, etc.. You know the sort of thing. Plus he saved the world! Everyone loves him!
But then, a bad winter, a worse spring. Not just calves dying, but children too, and no crops for the coming winter at all.
Which chance the theocracy takes to try to perform a coup.
Man. It’s never enough, is it?
I mean, just last night, when Forest got home from his parent date with my wasband, he was so chipper and happy, and we talked about the weird beetle we’d seen that morning, which was actually some kind of ant fly, which disappeared, but then I found it later and took a picture…And then we were scientists! Naming new species!! And then “Mama, I love you.” He says it with a little sigh. And “You are the best mama in the whole world.”
But then this morning, before coffee mind you, he calls from the living room “I know what I want for my birthday!” This is usually a pretty safe conversation. It involves me writing down the number for a Lego set. So I break my usual rule of having coffee in my hands before I talk about anything weighty.
“Oh? What, honey?” I say.
“I want a pug,” he says. “ I really really really want a pug."
Dear gods. “No way,” I say, automatically and with force. Because I have not had coffee yet and can't break it to him gently.
And we plunge off the cliff. He must have a pug. He will die if he doesn’t have a pug..
Etc etc.
But instead of getting irritated, I just start laughing. And then I am laughing so hard I can’t stop. Now he is yelling that I am the worst mother ever and it’s not funny and I manage to gasp out “Oh yes, honey. Yes, it is,” before I start laughing again.
Wasn’t I the best mother, in the world, just last night? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Man. I feel you, Pwyll. I mean, not that I’ve saved the world from war and despair lately, but Jeez. I took a picture of the ant fly. Doesn’t that count for anything?