I’m driving home after midnight thinking of Wanda and her neat house and saying maybe I could do that? Someday. Or maybe I didn’t say it, just thought it. Maybe I’m thinking of Samantha and Tabitha and the way I wish I had the power to wiggle my nose and move things. Like Mary and her Poppins. Even to be Aunt Clara would be nice. Remember Aunt Clara? The sweet bumbler of a witch? I’m thinking of Wanda and her perfection and how she trapped everyone inside that bubble.  That’s when I realize maybe I’m not driving. Maybe I’m watching TV, maybe I fell asleep.  I’m wondering what Wanda wanted.  I was watching the show with my son who did not know of the other witches -Samantha or Tabitha or Aunt Clara, and just barely Mary and her Poppins. Because Mary was a witch too, right?  She could make penguins sing and dance.  

Anyways, one time I was driving home after midnight past alder trunks, all white and grey in the soft light of the moon. And coyotes. One crossed the road in front of me and I stopped, or I didn’t. I can’t remember. To be sure, I saw a deer. I can’t remember where I was driving from or where home was exactly. I mean did I pass the driveway already? Because somedays are like that, everything a little fuzzy, or you wake up when you’re already awake, but you don’t know where you are.  I’d say Wanda just wanted her kids. To be back in those days when they were young and easy and the apples growing and everyone’s cheeks rosy. Except its black and white. And grey. There is a lot of grey.  And I’m driving home after midnight. Except I can’t drive yet. Not in the time of black and white. I am young and easy.

Maybe Wanda just wanted another chance. At parenting. At love. At being Wanda. Because who doesn’t? Want another go at things? To do better? Control events? Decide the outcome? That is some kind of power. Poor Wanda in her bubble. Things didn’t go so swell.  And me, I’m riding my bike now, down the roads of my youth, through the golden valleys of my Midwest, the tall elms waving their branches, the boulevards grand and wide. I am young and think I have all the time in the world, that we all do, the world green and growing.  Penguins are singing and dancing! And us, with our rosy cheeks, marveling, marveling, yea I say unto you, the world is our oyster. Except it is not. It is not. The oyster is not ours and we are just reeds shaking in the wind. And I’m riding, I’m riding my bike and I stop abruptly. I mean I crash.  There is this clear glass, like the side of a bubble. Wanda’s maybe. Or someone like her. On the other side penguins are dying. And there are no elm trees and there is my son with his arms waving about asking why? What? What have you done? What did you do?  

I haven’t posted in a while! Hello to everyone out there. Having a little fun with Wanda – this a riff I wrote after watching Marvel’s Wanda’s World.