"I"

My eldest was working feverishly on homework duty, all in an endeavor to earn some "PBSKids" time on the ol' tellie. As she was reviewing her spelling words with me, she asked, "Mommy, what if we couldn't say 'I'?"

Immediately, I was struck by the challenge. Good heavens? Could I make it through a day, much less an hour, without saying 'I'? What if I attempted to avoid 'me' and 'my' as well? The thought of how egocentric I'd reveal myself to be brought on a wave of self-loathing. I sure am an arrogant something-or-other. For heaven's sake, there are at least four infractions within THIS paragraph alone!

I kept poking at the food in the pan with my spatula, vigorously shaking the pan like I had something to prove. Without being able to stifle my bewildered heart I replied, "Wow. That would be awfully hard."

With a huge smile on her face, she came back with, "I know! You wouldn't be able to say the word 'ti-iiime' anymore. Or li-iiike!..." She drew out the long 'I' sound to drive her point home. Meanwhile, I had paused. First, there was that feeling of a mild sense of relief. And I chuckled along with her while we bantered back and forth, coming up with every long 'I' containing word we could think of.

But that deeper philosophical question
nagged at me and I wondered again at the idea, the challenge. In the ego-centric society we live in, writing about our mundane ins and outs for complete strangers to read as though it's as exciting as Koontz, would it hurt to veer away from 'me' for awhile? Pepper my conversation with a lot less 'me' and a bunch more 'we'? And for once, maybe beauty could be found in the 'you', and not in the 'I', of the beholder.