I HAVE WRITER'S BLOG

LILLY THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS ... Today the roles were suddenly reversed. At a writer's conference tonight, my moms suddenly became the shy child, and I was the one trying to nudge her into the classroom to mix with the other kids. She didn't want to socialize, completely somehow momentarily forgetting her talents, and there I was, 'there to do business'.

They're terrifying - those little moments when we become the grownups. When the world does a quick flip upside down and you find yourself being more mature or serious or logical than you really think you should have to be. Sometimes I think I'm so big and grown up, but never ever to the point that I want to really go switcheroo. I'll leave that to quality Jodie Foster childhood films. Never do I look at my life of twentysomething leisure and fun and shake my head, grimacing that - oh, no, *I* want to be the support column, the crying shoulder, the temperature taker, the advice doler-outer.

I know the saying that, with time, 'the parents become the kids and the kids become the parents', but I'd like to look at tonight as a one-time eavesdropping into a parallel world that I won't have to explore any time too soon.

So I went over to her house afterwards, complained about how tired I was, and begged for her best homemade omelette. And all was right again.