Yackity Yack

Some bills are really, really good. I look at my telephone bill for last month and I laugh. One of the long distance calls shows:

Toronto......280 minutes.

Who was this person you chatted to for ZOMG - 4 hours and 40 minutes on the telephone?

Did you take a pee break? (no, but I could have if I wanted to)

Did you skip a meal? (yes, I completely forgot to eat)

And in case you think I busted the bank: I get a global rate (I call Ireland frequently) of 5 cents a minute.

I don't particularly like the telephone.

So it makes this length of call both astonishing and hilarious.

And this endless conversation happens with my daughter.

What do we talk about?

Politics, feminism, art projects, writing, teaching, partnerships, entrepreneurship, her beloved daughter, now 16-1/2 - my grandgirl, cooking, growing, ideas, dreams.

She called today, it was another marathon. I only know this when I got off the phone and looked at the clock and realize lunch was skipped. Again.

I think she is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. I've thought that since the day she was born. She has never ceased to fascinate me. Even when she painted our front steps bright blue when she was four. And dug out under our backyard fence and escaped when she was three. And registered herself for swimming classes when she was four (they phoned me as my forged signature was printed in poorly executed CAPS - "MOMY")and showed up four months early for JK school and refused to leave so that the principal called me and I had to physically pry her out of there as she screamed and then put a calendar on her bedroom wall so she could mark the days until she could legitimately be at school. She was already reading and writing at the age of 4. So far ahead of herself she had to skip Grade 4 or she would have died of boredom.

She still has the capacity to surprise me all the time. I learn from her.

I remember the writer Isabel Allende being asked one time about the relationship she had with her mother. She responded that it was the longest love affair of her life.

I could say the same about my daughter.