Salty Days Ahead

I've always dreamed of winning a can of salt, but I'd always assumed that if I won said can, I would have been much younger and most likely drunk.

Such is life, no seedy story here to last a lifetime.

No I won the can in a poetry decoding contest which just proves I am the big nerd some of my friends profess I am.

I can't help it. I'm a sucker for poetry, and I'm even bigger sucker for winning. Try as I might to resign myself to an afternoon of fingerpainting and dusting, I couldn't. I heard Yeats and Donne, and goodness they are two sexy writers -- the stuff made for a good date and a bottle of wine.

And so the story goes, I tried to stay in my place trapped in the yellow wallpaper of my post college life, but I couldn't. I had to travel, and it was a arduous travel, into the files of my brain and pull out the goods.

It was a fantastic afternoon. I wasn't a mom. I wasn't a doormat. I had a brain (at times) and I got to use it. Those of you whose life has become a ritual of Cherrios and nights waiting by the phone for a call that may or may not come, who have sacrificed year upon year those dreams you could dispose of for the family's sake may understand how precious this afternoon was to me.

Thank you amishav.

As for the salt-- whatever am I going to do with it? Are there salty days ahead? Should I put it on my mantel as a reminder of the day when I was not in hock to my kids? Should I cook up a storm and relish each morsal of my victory? Is it inspiration or just a can of salt waiting for a fish?