Model
The Mommy Manual, page four, said: a mother must model good behavior.
I thought: fashion model, new vacuum cleaner model, I am the very model of a modern major general.
I admit, my mind wandered. I reeled it back.
Model
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: form, shape
Synonyms: base, carve, cast, create, design, fashion, mold, pattern, sculpt
Okay, I shall model good behavior and mold myself—fashion myself, even!—into a model mother.
Model
Part of speech: adjective
Definition: typical, ideal
Synonyms: archetypal, classical, commendable, exemplary, facsimile, flawless, illustrative, perfect, quintessential, representative, standard, typical
Looking back down at the Mommy Manual open on my lap, I thought: A model mother must be perfect. Or maybe just standard. But surely not a copy, not a facsimile.
Then I remembered when you said years ago: I want to date a model. And I said: a model what?
I said to you: maybe you have it backward? You want a model date? The Best Version Of a date, yes?
Just a model, you said.
Model
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: person, thing that poses
Synonyms: dummy, manikin, mannequin, nude, sitter, subject
Ah, I said, thinking particularly of nude.
And I countered.
Model
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: type, version
Synonyms: configuration, design, form, kind, mark, mode, style, variety, most typical, average, classic, clichéd, conventional, hackneyed, representative, stereotypical, stock, textbook, trite.
You said: you’re being mean, now.
I said: the newest vacuum cleaner model you purchase isn’t—
You interrupted: vacuum cleaner? I could see your mind wandering.
So I said: the newest car model you purchase isn’t The Best Version Of. It’s just the newest thing.
I said, smiling and searching your face: you want to date a thing?
By then you’d stopped listening.
Good
When I ran into you at the Oakland airport you asked: what’s new?
Not much, I shrugged.
Good news, you said.
Hadn’t seen you in years. Did you ever date that thing? That Best Version Of? Did you want to see a picture of my four year old of whom I am a (sometimes) model mother? I kept mum. Safer, smarter, easier to let you guide the conversation.
But again my mind wandered.
Good
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: pleasant, fine
Synonyms: acceptable, admirable, agreeable, congenial, excellent, favorable, great, honorable… all the way to wonderful and worthy.
You okay? You grinned at me.
Yeah, I’m good.
It’s a great job, you told me. A good opportunity.
At the playground, my son flies down the slide. Good job! Digs in leaf-strewn sand with a stick. Good job! I’m distracted, reading a magazine, looking up at a tree silhouetted against the sky. Good job I exclaim, without knowing why it’s good, why it’s a job.
What Is Good?
How To Be Good?
I kept those questions to myself, while I listened to you describe your good job.
Good
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: morality
Synonyms: class, dignity, excellence, ideal, merit, prerogative, probity, quality, rectitude, righteousness, uprightness, value, virtue, worth
Worth.
Goods. I am too materialistic. I reduce life to things. People to things. Women, especially. I am guilty of that. I objectify ‘em, though I try not to. Don’t you?
Goods
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: merchandise
Synonyms: cargo, commodities, freight, load, materials, stock, stuff, textile, vendibles, wares
Going up!
Sporting goods third floor. Household goods fourth floor.
I. Magin’s, San Francisco, 1972 or so, Christmastime. I am the size my little boy is now, crushed against grown ups in overcoats, as the man in the uniform pushes elevator buttons with a gloved finger.
All their worldly goods.
If a good is a thing, an object, material, stuff, then is a good idea a tangible one? Is a good story one that is heavy, physical, not ethereal?
In the airport waiting area, you said, indicating your suitcase: But I’m moving to Charlotte.
I said: pretty name, Charlotte.
You cocked your head, listening to an announcement: that’s my flight. Gotta catch that plane.
My son loves model airplanes. He loves flying down slides, poking elevator buttons, and swaying like a dancer, a plastic airplane in his hand, riding it up and down on invisible currents of air.
You said: goodbye.
Goodbye, I replied, and good luck! In—
Charlotte.
Good luck in Charlotte.
In Charlotte. I giggled. You always make me think of sex. It’s puzzling.
While I walked through the airport to meet my husband coming in from Seattle, I told myself stories. I worked them this way and that as my son does with his brightly colored plastic tubes and elbow connectors, concentrating, twisting, trying one way then another. They’re the kinds of puzzles that have no solution or resolution. They are processes. And, yes, they are things.
