Toddlers Against The Man

Every time I see a child with a mohawk, I get a big smile on my face. "Rock on, small human. Rock on," I think, and clutch my hand into a fist that I'll raise anywhere from imperceptibly to an inch or two, depending on the crowd. I love freedom and self-expression and middle fingers (or strips of hair) to the system as much as anyone with a corporate 9-5, a mortgage, and a licensed Aveda stylist. Maybe even more.

But because I so adore overthinking everything, I start to ask questions. What if this child would rather sport a Lacoste polo and a casually draped sweater? What if he's a Fanilow? Does he even have an opinion on the relative merits of the London and NYC? Of course he doesn't. He's three. The only thing he's fighting is naptime. You're supposed to choose punk; punk should not be chosen for you.

It reminds me of the first time I visited the Double Down Saloon in Las Vegas. I was wearing crisp linen pants and a pink floral blouse, and I was worried about not fitting in to the dark, dirty, loud little bar. My wise older brother looked at me and said, "Don't worry. If they're truly punk rock, they won't care what you're wearing." Armed with what I knew deep inside to be the truth, I danced with the leather-clad with abandon.

Which brings me back to the involuntary mohawk. Maybe it's not just parents inflicting their style on their kids. Maybe it's parents saying, "Don't worry. Be unconventional if you want. The people who matter don't care about the things that don't."

Rock on, small human and the people in your life who love you. You're gonna be okay.

Is it a cliché to start a blog with a poem?

Because if so, this is all kinds of meta.

Such A Cliché As This

I can’t help but believe

it is the sincerest dream

of any writer

to compose

a brand new

cliché.

To author a pithy turn

of phrase,

or of plot,

or of ambient nature sounds

or symbolic sartorial details

that signify a meaning

so purely and universally undeniable

that thirty, or three hundred years from now

it would still cause eyes to roll,

mouths to cringe.

To sneak her way into the poem

of a teenager who knows he will never

understand or be understood,

or into the first novel of the mother

who finds herself at the community college,

nest empty, earning her wings.

To burn in the heart of every lover

who knows theirs is a story

for the ages, the culmination

of all the love that has ever been

and will ever be.

Because why do we write,

if not to live forever?

If not to capture Truth.

And Beauty.

And all that is Eternal.