language of the lens

2012-01-18T16:43:00.003-05:00

We've started a new blog:

www.letusgothen.net

We'd love to see you there!

And Then We Came To the End

2011-12-13T08:40:00.001-05:00

I've talked about this before with someof you, about how what I put on the screen is anabridged version of life as it really is. It has to be. Otherwiseevery moment would take a page, every day a book.

What I've put on this particularscreen is, I think, the most truthful I've ever been. But I've left parts out. The ugly parts, the boring parts, the tedious parts. I'm not completely the person you know throughthis blog.

I haven't told you about how, onceevery couple of months, I scream at my kids so fiercely that mythroat aches the rest of the day. I never mentioned how M and I hada not-quite-whispered argument in the car in front of a dear friendand how it embarrassed me. And this: if you are skinny, or rich, or otherwise remind me of certain girls from high school, I might not like you upon our first meeting. Yes, I'mshallow. Less than zenful.

Please don'tmistake this as a call for reassurance - I have good qualities, I know. I am generally happy withwho I am and how my life works. But people have said things to meabout this blog, about how my life seems to be full of raucouslaughter and sweet kisses, and it is but I don't want anyone to getthe impression that joy is a constant, that I have reached thenirvana of family life and every day is sunshine and lollipops fromthe nice ladies at the bank.

So - it isn't. Sometimes the lollipops are not the right flavor.

That picture of me - I hate my teeth. And my face is too red. And one eye closes more than the other. And is my nose really that big? But there I am. This is me.

We're going to keep going. B and I, we don't get to see each other very often even though we don't live all that far apart and we work even closer, geographically. This is a way to stay in each others' lives and I don't want to give that up. Plus, the fame and fortune of blogging is just too much for us to resist. So join us in the new year at our new blog, www.letusgothenyouandi.wordpress.com. This isn't so much as goodbye as it so long, see you soon.
~a

There are doors everywhere you look, some of them are magic and some of them don’t look like doors until you step through them.

Two years ago we came up with an idea for this collaboration. At the time it seemed like a lark and making it through all one hundred words was perhaps a possibility. Like seeing your child off to kindergarten and wondering what the cap and gown will look like at their high school graduation. Never has one felt so far away from its counterpart with the two extra zeros. Yet it’s never just a hop, step and a jump to the other side; rather its baby steps--one next to the other until you turn around and realize how far you’ve come. Turn around sometime and see for yourself, I promise that you will be amazed.

The writer, Mollie Hunter, says children are the ones who ‘never pass a secret place in the woods without a stare of curiosity for the mystery implied… who still turn corners with a lift of expectation atthe heart.’ No matter how many years old I am this is how I live my life, always wondering and full of wonder. This is the season for delight and merriment, feeling like a child and realizing thatanything is possible. Even magic.

If you just believe.

The next time you have a chance, say yes to a collaboration and see where it takes you. Open a door to another world and step through without hesitation. Little by little this blog has become a part of my weekly routine. By saying yes to this weird and wacky idea we had, there’s been the opportunity to reflect on our lives and connect with people we didn’t even know two years ago. Looking through my lens each week—every day if possible—has been the most incredible gift I could have ever asked for. Seeing what my dear friend a saw and reading her words next to mine has been surprising, funny, heart wrenching and has shown me parts of her I didn’t know. I cherish each and every one of these posts. Somehow we’ve created this mosaic of our lives, a bit of beauty from broken pottery and a little bit of somethin’ to make it all stick together.

As crazy as it can be, December is also the time of year when we start to wind down, wrap up presents and loose ends. We’ve finished our challenge and are taking on tackling another literary work, whichshould last about another two years. After a brief break we’ll post here every week starting in January. If you have a moment, please comment and let us know some of your favorite photos and stories. Hearing from you would be quite a treat as we gear up to step though another doorway into the beyond. We hope you’ll join us.

~b

Afraid

2011-12-06T09:37:00.000-05:00

Why do I dread these writing these posts? At the beginning of the week I am hopeful, even joyful for the challenge. Come Sunday I keep wishing for wisdom and a perfect image to appear in front of my lens. It often takes me forever to put into words what my heart is longing to say. I reach out and they fall like sand through my fingers. I’m afraid that the words I do capture fall short of my intention. It’s like they aren’t good enough, and by extension I’m not good enough. As if someone will read what I have to say and make these judgments.

I make my own judgments about my life maybe too harshly. I can’t pass by a mirror without averting my eyes. I can’t-- won’t look at the me I’ve become. Being a student and now being a teacher (in addition to librarian, bookseller, wife and mother) have thrown my equilibrium off and distorted my sense of self. I found myself cringing a few weeks ago when there was a mirror in a scene of a movie I was watching. I soon realized the impossibility of the situation, the irrationality, and that maybe this is not your everyday fear, but perhaps a phobia. Otherwise known as Catoptrophobia.

At night I dream of those same mirrors, or showing up to school unprepared, or driving off-road, downhill and being unable to stop. I wake up wanting to shake those thoughts out of my head, salt out of a shaker. But the dream that terrifies me to the core is the one that I wake up from and shiver, as if it was a reality that seeped under my skin. In it I am rocking in a chair, it is dark and I think I can see and hear but there is nothing around me. All I can feel is the emptiness that surrounds me. I am old and have been left all alone. What I can’t understand is how it happened. Surely in my old age I would have a cat or two. Could it be that I cannot care for myself, that in my old age I have become feeble, vulnerable, waiting for it all to end.

It cannot end that way. Each time I make a decision, choose a path, I think about where it is leading. Yet the end cannot be all consuming. It’s about savoring, living, noticing, taking it all in because it is
mine. These are the days I will revisit. Moments make the days, days make the years and together they make a life. I want to look back and feel full, not empty. In my old age I want to read and write. If I cannot read, I want to listen. And if I cannot do that I hope I can have my memories to comfort me. There are days now when I wish for the chance to rock back and forth. Slowly. An empty house around me, but only until everyone comes back, eager to share news of their day.

These words from Tara Sophia Mohr, hit home today and made me see that words have power. They can transcend and connect us all. Even if they aren’t perfect, not the words she wanted. She wasn’t afraid to put them out there, and for that I am thankful.

“What you’ll want a thousand years from now is this:
A memory that beats like a heart—
A travel memory, of what it was like to walk here,
alive and warm and textured within.

Sweet brightness, aliveness, take-me-now-ness that is life.
You are here to pay attention. That is enough.”

I say: Forget fear. Be brave. This is the end, but there is no need to be afraid of what lies ahead. An end means there is room for a beginning.

When I was three I threw a rock at a truck. And managed to hit it. The driver braked and shouted, "Who threw that rock at my truck?" and I ran to the house and tried to open the door, but I was three and the doorknob was unfamiliar - this was my uncle's house in California where my mother and I were staying on our vacation - and uncooperative. I couldn't get into the house, where safety and my mother waited for me. I don't remember how the situation ended - maybe my mother opened the door, maybe my older cousin helped me out - but I remember the feeling of dread that persisted in my stomach for the remaining afternoon. Would the truck driver come back? Would he do something horrible to me, to my mother? That's the most afraid I've ever been in my life.

At least that's the most consciously afraid I've ever been in my life. I mean, there's the ever-present fear of death. It's the death of my children that scares me more than my own. Dying myself would hurt less than my children dying. There's the fear of total nuclear annihilation. There's the more pedestrian fear of the bank balance. There's the fear of the unknown that I get every time I climb the stairs to my office, even after two months of working at that wonderful place. There's being afraid of the month ahead with its resident deadlines, shipping fees, and hours packed too tightly with have-tos instead of want-tos. There's the abstract fear of never publishing a book, never visiting Africa, never being invited on to Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

All of which I can mostly handle. But that fear from thirty - ahem - four years ago of having done something terribly bad with unmanageable consequences looming over me, that fear can still keep me awake at night, lights blazing a weak defense.

But I learned: never throw rocks at passing trucks, even if there's no chance of hitting the target. Because there's always a chance. So feel safe driving your truck down my road.
~a

Next Week: we wrap it up.

Bloom

2011-11-28T08:20:00.000-05:00

I Am Losing My Bloom.

Not of youth. That patina was rubbed off several years ago, not by a specific number of accumulated years but by my children, who are determined to make permanent the hint of red in the whites of my eyes.

No. My current loss of bloom concerns writing. The voices in my head are getting quieter and quieter because I listen to them so rarely. They are annoyed with me. They've almost given up. They whispered the other day, in the car, “Yes, we were concerned at the lack of specificity in the cartographer's directions. Most of were concerned. Those of us who spent our time looking down at the ground were concerned, but those of us who more often looked up at the trees felt no worry.” I know, it's not much, but it was mine and it was singing until... someone asked if we could get pizza for dinner. And then someone else asked for cd 2, song 4, which happened to be that mining song by the Decemberists that I really loved until we played it for the 459^th time – two months ago.

My purse used to be littered with scraps of paper. Important scraps of paper with ideas written on them. Now my purse is just littered. On my computer I used to have several documents open and active and each one would be visited every day and added to a little bit. I still have several documents open in various stages of completion; some of them bordering on late, most of them bordering on boring.

Is this a phase? Does everyone go through a time in their lives when they fail to work at what they love the most? And how does one end the phase? I've tried booze, I've tried Mozart, I've tried candlelit tubs. It's no use.

Patience, I suppose. Patience and distraction. I try hard not to look too closely at the problem, and that's pretty easy since life is full of peanut butter jelly sandwiches, shirts on backwards, those bills that come every month, salted caramels and earaches. Maybe the voices will return full strength in the spring. Which is tough, since, despite the snow on the ground, it isn't even winter yet.

Maybe I just have to listen more closely. Shhhhh.....

It used to be that there were more lazy sundays, those special do-nothing days of the Calvin and Hobbes variety. The apartment and the surroundings may have changed—not to mention the addition of children and pets--but the music has remained the same. Once upon a time Sinatra was the soundtrack to our sundays. Sometimes there was Ella or Hartman, sometimes Baker or Etta, but the sounds from the stereo always went down like a smooth drink that warmed or cooled depending on the weather. Now that it's November the days are looking a bit grey and we're starting to gear up for the beginning of the holiday season. In the face of the chaos that is to come, our teenager spent the afternoon at a friend’s and the grown-ups took the day off.

Blossom Dearie was the clear choice today. She's one of my favorites, I think I feel a connection to those big glasses she's wearing on the cover of the CD. I love her easy, carefree lyrics, which are the perfect upbeat accompaniment to waffle-making, knitting and hand holding. As much as I wanted to cross off all of the items on my mammoth to-do list, I resisted. Still, it seemed to be sitting there, mocking me, growing and expanding every time I turned my eyes away. It haunts me. Yet I wonder, when will I learn that you can only push so far before you break and snap?

M is often after me to take it easy; to rest, relax, enjoy. And I try, I really do. Every time I manage to slough off that ten-ton bit of baggage I've been carrying, I am amazed at how much I enjoy myself and I begin to love life again. I had this idea recently that maybe, just maybe “growing” isn't enough. Could it be that we need more than the basics: food, water and shelter? How much do we need to feel a connection, to be with someone that we can just be ourselves, our ugly selves if need be, to really thrive? Maybe being in a relationship of any kind that is honest and sincere is where we start to show our true selves--our best selves—which allows us to blossom and shine. Given those connections and that intimacy, what we produce and are capable of creating can be heartbreakingly beautiful. I think of those sunflowers I admired this summer and how they would turn their heads toward the sky and just drink it all in. I know (though that knowledge may be buried somewhere deep inside me) that a decent rest can rejuvenate you just the same. “Go, go, go!” doesn’t always have to be the mantra.

Unfortunately we won't see the sun much for the next few months, the days are getting shorter. Much to my dismay I find that my energy runs out so much faster at this time of year. In the summer it often feels like I can go on forever. Now words like “dormant” and “hibernation” trip off the tongue. Really those are just a way of describing a longer rest, cause in the scheme of things Spring is only a season away. We just have to get through the snow that will inevitably bury us several times over this Winter. I don't mind the snow, it's the sun I miss most. On those days when I feel depleted, M will remind me of all we have to look forward to come Spring and how we'll rejoice when we finally see the leaves budding on the trees. He'll also remind me how much I love being cosy in these snow-covered months, and that it really is the best time to knit, curl up with a good book; and that icicles, snowmen and hot cocoa will begin to make their long awaited appearances. As much as I fuss, I can't begin to imagine a year without them.

No matter the time of day, the time of year, or how he's feeling, M never fails to perk me up when I need it most. He supports those crazy out-of-this-world goals and dreams of mine. When I whisper ever so faintly how much I love baking and taking photographs he is the one who hears the quiet longing of my heart. And when I (finally) get up the courage to make those passions a bigger part of my life I know he'll be there with open arms to clap for me or pick me up when I fall.

In the words of our gal Blossom, “I'm glad that I'm the one who found you. That's why I'm always hangin' round you. Do I love you? Oh my, do I. Honey, indeed I do.”
~b

Next Week's Final Word: Afraid

Cheese

2011-11-22T05:59:00.000-05:00

November is many things, chief among them grey, desolate and often the calm before the chaotic holiday festivities. It is also known to others as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. A few years ago my sister-in-law mentioned to me that she might like to try it. Last year I signed up online, mostly for the pep talks, which come once a week from a variety of authors. Even though I didn't really write any fiction last year--that thesis seemed to suck up all my energy like a high-powered vacuum cleaner--I did enjoy getting an “I know you can do it” message in my inbox each week. This year I signed up without any reservations or hesitations. At this point my word count is still meager, but I have created characters that seem to be living with me. It's like I bump into them occasionally while I'm on my way to something else. Through these little interactions I'm always surprised to find out what sort of breakfast cereal Mattie prefers or what bedtime rituals help Jamie drift off to sleep. Still no matter how many words I actually accrue towards a finished novel, for me it's all about the pep talks. (Erin Morgenstern thinks that “pep” sounds like a dog nickname, and encourages you to think of her inspirational note as a small dog full of spirit or energy. Gotta love that imagery.)

This year the NaNoWriMo website has an agony aunt, Maureen Johnson, in all her irreverent irrepressible glory. Every day she responds to a question a struggling writer has submitted. The results are very unexpected but always right on target. As much as I find some wisdom in her answers, I highly enjoy the pictures she includes from old black and white films that feature the Marx Brothers, Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart. In one of her very first letters she made reference to a cheese wheel race down a very steep hill every held Spring Bank Holiday in Gloucester, England. The analogy being that this month in which one tries to write a whole novel is all about giving in, letting go and rolling with the words wherever they take you. It's not about editing, critiquing or refining; it's about writing that rough draft no matter how bad it may be.

One of the ways I foster my creative energy (and conveniently procrastinate) is to read most everything I can lay my hands on. Right now it's “Bluefish” by Pat Schmatz. Skimming the blurb on the back of the book I was instantly drawn to Velveeta. It is a name she wears with as much style as the colorful scarves she adorns everyday--each one different to suit her mood. Her real name is Vida, but she was given nickname by a classmate in second grade. Much to her dismay, she is also known as Cheap Cheese. This being a YA novel, the moniker seems obvious, but Velveeta manages to ignore it, her dysfunctional family and most everyone around her. She finds herself drawn to Travis, a boy with issues of his own. And then there is Mr. McQueen, a teacher who helps his students discover their true potential. He does it in such a sincere way (or as Velveeta calls it: all Stand and Deliverish) that I wish I could channel him in my class. As far as I’m concerned, any book that offers up “The Book Thief” and “One Fish Two Fish” as important influences is pure genius.

I am more than enchanted and excited by both of these characters and the author as well. It's like by reading her words, Schmatz has given me some highly-caffeinated, super-sugared drink that's enabled me with super powers. I can't get to the keyboard fast enough. Yet I can only maintain the buzz for so long. I find in that in the quiet moments it's the poetry of Mary Oliver makes me want to be a better writer. She instills in me this sense of wanting to put down word after word after word just to see what they look like floating next to each other in a sea of paper and ink. .

If this were somehow possible, I imagine that they (characters, authors and poet) are all on the path up ahead of me, beckoning me forward. I don't know where they are leading me, try as I might I can't see past them. Will it be a clearing, a flower-filled meadow, sandy beach or steep hill? Be it the latter, I should do up my laces, and get ready to run. Auntie MJ, I think I'm ready for those trips, stumbles and ridiculous speed you mentioned. Heck, I don't even care if I win the cheese, I'm just happy to be in the race.
~b

Context is everything.

For the past few days I have been able to remember, very faintly, the smell of the carpet in my parents' living room. Not the living room carpet they have now, which is red. I think. I have no head for details. But the carpet currently haunting me was beige and fairly unblemished by exposure to ancient dogs. It did not reach the walls all the way around but was framed by bare pine boards run through with squiggly dark lines that I used to suspect were secret codes implanted by a child who'd lived there before me. The rug's weave was scratchy against my elbows. That floor, that rug, was where I read most of the Little House books.

And when I snuggled on the couch last Friday night with T, L, B and friend D, and read to them about how to slaughter a pig and make head cheese, that rug came back like it had been lying in wait around the next bend of brain.

This happens more and more often as T reads the books I once read, sometimes the same worn copy. He zipped through retro Gordon Korman and I found myself in a sleeping bag on a friend's floor with MTV blaring from the television on the dresser. He read A Wrinkle In Time and boom, my mouth was filled with sharp rock candy. It's not just kids' books - whenever I reread The Stone Diaries I taste roast beef half subs on white with oil, vinegar, and rosemary, my standard lunch during my last year of college. Rosemary for remembrance.

I wonder what attracted to me to those Little House books, which turn out to be a long list of instructions that could have been titled "Frontier Living For Dummies." But T loves it. Which is strange, since he's the one who spends months October to May wrapped in a quilt. He's the one who avoids the outside if he hears the whine of any type of insect. But there he sits, reading about cutting ice from frozen lakes and escaping beatings from the schoolmaster.

I wonder what he'll mentally associate with these books when he's older. Maybe the smell of a dying fire. Maybe the taste of eggnog of which we are all allowed one glass a day during this delightful season (some of us add spiced rum and moan like Homer Simpson). Maybe he'll remember me, something about me. I'd like to be remembered as all-knowing and benevolent, but most likely my voice will sound a tad, ahem, whiny in retrospect. Probably it sounds like that now.

But we have little control over what our kids will remember about us. Mine might remember laughing about head cheese as we sat cozy on the couch in late evening light.
~a

Next Week's Penultimate Word: Blossom

King

2011-11-15T11:04:00.000-05:00

One morning last week L asked me "Do you want to hear this song I made up?"

No. I did not want to hear the song he'd made up. I wanted to feed dogs, walk dogs, feed horses, feed children, drink more coffee, make lunches, shower, brush my teeth, sign T's reading log. My morning had no room for made up songs sung in high, squeaky voices.

"I'd love to, sweetie."

And so he began. This was no ordinary song. This song had props: shiny slivers of colored stones held up against the morning windows of our front door and crowned in the sunlight: kings of earth, sea, wind and air. I'm not sure why he called them kings. I'd record the lyrics if I could remember them, but only the theme has survived my my beleaguered brain. L carried those stones, his kings, with him for several days - to school, to a cub scout meeting, to bed. A few times I caught him holding them one by one up to whatever light source was available, sometimes humming under his breath. Those stones, for at least a week, were something magic to him. I miss that, about being young. The ability to know for sure that magic exists.

Of course, today was overcast. We tried to recreate the light-and-stones show for a picture, but the inside of our house was uncooperative and the outside just as bad. After a few dismal tries L and I headed for a flag burning ceremony. I was a bit shocked when the e-invite to the flag burning came from the cub scout leader, who never seemed the type to take that sort of action, but M explained this is what you do with a tattered flag - burn it. Not bury it, not shove it in the trash can. And apparently you can't cut it into squares to use as hankies, like we do with old cloth diapers. No, flags have to be honored with fire. The stripes are cut apart and burned individually; the square with the stars goes last; it's all very solemn and...cold. At least today was cold. And really there was nothing about kings on that patch of grass next town over; it was all about the opposite, the democracy we find ourselves trying to uphold with occupations both foreign and domestic, but the ceremony was royalesque, and L, standing at attention a few times visibly trying not to shiver, looked princely.

My princes of New Hampshire, my kings of New England. Keep reminding me of magic.
~a

After several weeks of rehearsals, T's play was performed this past weekend to several sold-out shows. My son is usually the one to be on stage, but this time he found himself working behind the scenes. As part of the tech crew he moved props and made sure everything on the stage was where it needed to be. He also stepped in to rehearse lines when different members of the cast were unable to make a practice or two. As a result there were many lines from the play being bandied about at home. One in particular was my very favorite, and was often quoted to me whenever I stood in the kitchen with mixing bowls and oats at the ready.

When I actually got to experience the performance I found that I knew much of the dialogue and was familiar with several of the songs. Still, I kept waiting for my line. Finally we came to a part where the old and new toys are facing off against each other. Mr. Potato Head confesses that the only reason he's still around and not in the recycling bin is that some mommies don't believe in letting their kids play with video games. Queen Frostine chimes in with her affirmation, “I have met those moms. They live in a magical Kingdom called Vermont and they make their own granola.”

If I were to be a king I would wish for something as beautiful as Vermont the woods and hills as far as the eye can see. I know that I am truly lucky to live here and at the end of each day before I close my eyes I often hear a familiar refrain (albeit in a voice reminiscent of Michael Caine.) “Goodnight you princes of Maine, you kings of New England. Then I start what has become for me a nightly Cider House Rules ritual. Which begins by me silently saying “ Let us be happy for...” and like a prayer I go through in my mind all of the things I am grateful for. And in this way my days come to a comforting close.

Yet overall endings to most anything make me weepy and tearful, I'm rarely ready to let any experience go. The end of this weekend's play was no exception. Throughout each scene the queen is insistent that her one wish will be granted and it will finally snow inside the toy store. As the lights dimmed and a hush fell over the audience, the first flakes started to fall and it truly was magical. In a clear quiet voice she began to sing, “And when it snows. It is how I know. I am home.” Tears came to my eyes as I felt a recognition and deep connection to those same thoughts. This is my home and it truly as beautiful as a dear friend reminded me in the midst of my feeling sad this week. My one wish would be that everyone should have a place like this to feel at home. A house, a fortress, perhaps a castle--or my fondest desire: a turret-- where they can live, reign and love as they so choose.
~b

Next Week's Word: Cheese

Just three more left, hard to believe.

Street

2011-11-07T19:32:00.001-05:00

Looking back over this week, a flood of inconveniences wash over me: the overflowing toilets, the lack of sleep, and the walnuts that were toasted beyond recognition. Then there was the alternator in my car that gave up the ghost. I really couldn’t blame it, weeks like this make me want to throw in the towel too.

Having only one car threw a real wrench into my weekend plans. I had a commitment on Saturday and needed a way to get there. The only solution was to wake up at the crack of dawn and take M to work. As we stepped outside the stars were at their brightest, surprising me with their beauty. Who knew the sky could be so intense before the day breaks? We drove down the hushed streets of town without seeing a soul. Most likely they were still asleep, enjoying a slow start to a day off from work. After dropping M off at the store, I headed back to the house; turning up the radio to keep awake but not really listening. As I drove out of town a fox crossed my path, breaking me out of my thoughts.

When I got home I fed the dogs who were eagerly awaiting breakfast and snuck back into bed. I picked up a Maureen Johnson book and tucked under the covers. A few pages in and there it was, a description of a fox wandering early in the morning. And then another mention a few pages later. An artist had tattooed the names of her foxes on her feet. Instantly I felt a connection and the book became electric in my hands.

Then it was time for me to get up, get ready and head out on my way. The drive up to school gave me an opportunity to think about all that’s happened these past few months. The question I keep coming back to is this: Why is it just when I think I’ve reached the bottom does the rug suddenly get pulled out from beneath me? It makes it so hard to get my footing, and almost impossible to take that first step
forward.

We live in a nice house in a lovely small town, but we certainly don’t live on Easy Street-- though I think about moving there. When I do, I hear that song in my head from the Annie musical. Which always reminds me of that redhead’s introduction to the mansion and everyone who works there. What would it be like to have someone draw my bath, lay out my clothes and give me tennis lessons? It might be fun-- even thrilling--at first, but overall it sounds boring to me, never having a chance to do things for yourself. I am nothing if not a DIY gal.

Given everything that’s happened to our family recently, I’ve realized that it comes down to a choice. I can be broken or broken open. That’s the one true thing that I keep coming back to again and again. Rather than be deluged by thoughts of inconveniences, hardships and mishaps I’m choosing to look beyond. I think of the stars, the fox and the warmth of sneaking back into bed with a book. Too bad those people on Easy Street slept in and missed it all.

We live on a road. I don't think I've ever lived on a street. Streets offer neighbors, hot dog vendors, sidewalks, parades. If you live on Mulberry street you might catch a glimpse of elephants, pashas, bands and men with long beards. Our road is dirt and quiet. Sometimes dusty. Today I met a man with the same last name as our road. That's what happens when your neighborhood is both large and small. When the dirt you walk upon is old as...dirt. My dogs and I generally rush through our morning walk these days; the air is frigid already and there are small people to deliver to various spots. But the road is very patient. It waits for weekend days when time is somehow longer and stretchy. Our road has never hosted a parade beyond our line of boys and four-legged friends, except when the road needs grading. Then we sit on our porch and pay close attention. We wave. We might cheer. And we feel less alone in the world populated by large growling machines.
~a

Next week's word: King

Salt

2011-11-01T14:02:00.000-04:00

I tasted my first margarita in a dimly lit dive in Amherst, Mass. The usual story. A lazy winter afternoon. Two friends, now faceless in memory, did not have to work hard to convince me to skip my women's studies class for a more productive lunch of burritos and margaritas. I was a beer girl back then, beer or screwtop wine, and their margaritas seemed excessive in huge bowl glasses with lime adornments and salty rims, as bad as those plaid elbow patches affected by certain English majors. But one sip and I was reborn. My feet ceased their cold ache. My nose quit drizzling. My worries about essays, that pesky graduate thesis, rent payments, a far-away boyfriend - all hushed while I embarked on a brief yet potent tropical vacation. And then those friends ordered guacamole, another first for me, and I might have married either one of them that moment if they'd thought to ask. Never mind the far-away boyfriend whose heart may or may not have been broken by my sudden elopement.

I had a margarita last Saturday night while dressed as a witch and accompanied by a ghost, a geek, a German beer wench, a driver and a zebra. And though the wind cackled and battered the window panes and my feet were damp in their high-heel boots from the short trek up the storm-struck hill, that cool margarita made me warm. As did the friends around the table in various stages of giddiness. I usually leave Halloween for the kids and dip into their candy bags as if they were my own but this year we shucked our true selves and went out dancing, drinking and laughing. Another margarita, waiter. No worries about the faces of these friends turning ghostly with time.
~a

Dear P,

We only met once and perhaps it seems an odd thing to write now, yet something told me I should. I always wished that we had had more of a chance to get to know each other, but for some reason it wasn’t meant to be. I tell myself that it’s not as if you’re completely gone, your legacy lives on in your children and grandchildren. This November marks the seventeenth anniversary of your death. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you. This time of year I am reminded of it was like to be a stranger amongst your family. Trying to comfort them for their loss, all the while trying to make that Thanksgiving seem as normal as possible. I’ve always wanted to thank you for all that you’ve done, and this week just seemed like a good time to put down these thoughts.

I’m sorry that you didn’t live to see your son become a father. He’s done such a wonderful job, you would be oh so pleased and proud. Hard to fathom how quickly it happened, but your grandson is a teenager now. He’s very tall, though you probably expected that. I would describe him as witty and talented, with his own unique sense of style. He seems so confident and comfortable in his own skin. I
sometimes imagine the two of you having a chat over tea and scones, I’m certain you both would enjoy each other’s company. You would smile at his wry sense of humor. Raising him as an only child, especially one without grandparents, has presented its own set of challenges. When I think about you raising six children I am in awe. I often consider what it must have been like when your family sat down to dinner at the very same table that now resides in our kitchen. I think about you using the blue and white canisters we inherited as you baked something special or put together yet another meal. Perhaps once you got sick you wished for the routine of everyday life. Hoping to roll out a pie crust or sprinkle the salt onto some freshly baked Parker House rolls.

Those rolls are some of my favorites. Who can resist that soft, pillowy dough? The kiss and bite of the crystals, ensuring you will reach for another. You can never eat just one. Did you know that your son is an amazing cook and a talented baker, making us dinner each and every night. His willingness to try and replicate any meal I discover in a magazine or online is one of the reasons I absolutely adore him. He’s thoughtful, kind and caring. I know it’s due to your influence that he became the loving husband and father that he is today.

Thank you for all that you’ve given us. If I had my way we would have had more time to talk and chat, for you to give me advice about being a wife and a mother. I often revisit the one afternoon we had
together. You brought out your quilts to show me, as I was what you called “a captive audience.” Many years after our meeting we still have some of your smaller quilts hanging on our walls. Everyday I am
reminded of your artistry and dedication. Someday these will be passed along to children and great grandchildren, along with canisters, furniture and other memorabilia. It’s the stories though that I hope to preserve and pass down. In this way we keep your memory alive for generations to come. Thank you for all that you accomplished as a wife and mother and for helping to give my little family a strong
foundation on which to grow, shape, structure and grace.

Love always,
Your daughter-in-law

~b

Next Word: Street

Green

2011-10-25T14:26:00.001-04:00

Though most of the leaves here in Vermont are slowly giving way to a red, yellow or orange hue, we’ve still plenty of green to go around. For me this month has been filled with community gatherings. Each in their own way have lifted my spirits, made me laugh, and made me pleased to be part of a larger whole.

Definition 1 green~ A pop culture term to generalize all of the environmentally beneficial and sustainable means of mitigating the impact of human industrial development and the damage of previous degradation of the environment.

This Columbus Day Weekend, instead of heading to the beach, I headed to the hills. Cedar Circle farm held their annual pumpkin festival and I was asked if I wanted to volunteer my services as a photographer. I couldn’t say yes fast enough. The benefits are great (free shirt, free food!) and it was a chance to see many of the children who have since grown out of my library storytimes. I was amazed at all of the offerings: music, crafts, face painting, cider pressing, horse-drawn wagon rides, great local food and a field of pumpkins just waiting to go home with over excited children to be carved and lit. My camera was never far from my side. I clicked and clicked, pleased to be there amidst the harvest. There were over 1800 people who attended this year’s festival, with only two and a half bags of garbage collected. Everything else was recycled or composted. That’s definitely a commitment to the environment that we can all try to adopt in our own way. I can’t wait for the strawberry festival, I hear it’s just as much fun.

Definition 2 green~ A common or park in the center of a town or village

The center of our town serves as a gathering place throughout the year. We host many events, including picnics, May Day, concerts, and the Fair. Every other Fall we host an event called Giving Bowls. The premise is this: local artists make ceramic bowls, the children (and other community members) glaze the bowls and bake bread. Local businesses donate soups and we gather on a beautiful day in October to eat, drink and be merry. The money raised goes to a different charity each time. This year I volunteered to work in the silk screening both. Seeing that there were many capable hands ready to turn blank t-shirts into works of art, I grabbed my camera and proceeded to capture as many images as possible. I love seeing so many of my friends and neighbors together in one place. This is the event I eagerly anticipate, even more than the Fair. (Which I certainly love; but a good bowl of soup, in a beautiful bowl that I get to take home gets my vote every time.)

Definition 3 green~ a color whose hue is somewhat less yellow than that of growing fresh grass or of the emerald or is that of the part of the spectrum lying between blue and yellow

For years my fellow knitters have talked about the October sale at Yates Farm. On Saturday they serve a breakfast, and their yarn is displayed throughout their old farmhouse. I have always wanted to go, for it sounds like a version of Christmas that truly must be experienced rather than just imagined. This year I managed to swap my Saturday work schedule in order to see the sale for myself. It was even more lovely than I could have possibly imagined. The farm, the house, the yarn—I didn’t know where to look first. I got the tour and then decided I had to have my camera. I desperately needed to take some of these images with me, maybe even more than I needed the yarn. (Who ever thought I would write that sentence ?!?) Everything was so thoughtfully arranged, both the yarn and the furnishings. The whole family was there helping out with the sale. The daughters were ringing people out, the grandsons were telling the adults when the yarn was low, and one of the granddaughters had spent the morning putting the colorful skeins just so onto the table. It certainly was a labor of love, for the whole Yates family, and the community certainly appreciated it. As I sipped a cup of coffee I watched people go by loaded up with yarn, the open skeins slipped over their arms. Each person that went by seemed so happy, and I realized it was because they were planning, and dreaming of possibilities. Of the sweaters, scarves and hats they would make for their family and friends. I managed to limit myself to a few skeins. I chose a beautiful blue-green yarn that will be perfect for a sweater I have had my eye on. This winter as I knit (and knit and knit) I will remember my time at the Yates Farm, as well as the day spent at the Giving Bowl and the Pumpkin Festival. I will trust that white snow will certainly one day give way to the verdant green grass. These are the thoughts that will keep me warm.

For more images from each of these events, please visit Flickr
~b

Sigh. Holidays can be tough in our house.

Take Halloween. Friday night was the cub scout Halloween party and when you are three and a half, the cub scout Halloween party is a really big deal, up there with Christmas, your birthday, and your first trip to the dentist. But the party starts at 6:30 and you have been up since 5:30 (in the morning) and have had no nap so, of course, when you are three and a half, you fall asleep on the way there and stay asleep stretched out on the floor over by the janitor's closet where other parents give you and your mother weird looks. Even though your mother loves you so much she gives you her own coat for a pillow. Until she gets cold and has to take it back, but the floor isn't THAT dirty. And then, when you are three and a half, you wake up on the way out to the car and wail, "Why are we leaving?!" because for you the party has just begun even though for everyone else, especially your mother who needs a glass of wine, an aspirin, and a few hours of Modern Family, it is really, really over.

Poor B. He was confused and his feelings were hurt. But he did rally enough the next day to wear his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume for several hours and make great use of a green glow stick brought home by one of his brothers. I know, Halloween is still days away and chances are very good that his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume will rip, burst, tear or shred before we go trick-or-treating, but I don't think he would care, and he likes to practice being...a mutated turtle with enemies.

Apparently, though, since he missed the party and only knew the glow stick in daytime, he had no clue of its true powers. After tucking him into bed Saturday night, after reading him a story, kissing him, kissing his plastic spiderman and finally turning out the light he called me back in with a voice half-panicked, half-bewildered. "Mommy," he gasped. "It glows!" His sweet face was lit (in a sickening sort of way) by the clammy green light of his glow stick and I was struck anew by the true meaning of Halloween. It's not about goody bags, gorilla suits and fake blood. Well, it is, but it's also about that shivery fear of the otherworldly. The gruesome potential of might-have-beens. It's about being a kid who believes in both the benevolent and malevolent sides of magic. And glow sticks. It's about glow sticks. Which are just cool and do not even explain to me how they work, I don't want to know.
~a

Next Week’s Word: Salt

Quiet

2011-10-16T21:48:00.000-04:00

We don't do quiet in our house. We do rambunctious, crashing, shrieking (both joy and anger) and laughing. We do multi-leveled simultaneous conversations. A friend once mentioned our house reminded her of that fable in which a wise man councils a complaining man to bring in a cow, a rooster, another something loud and another, and then to get rid of all of them so the house will be silent in comparison. Only we can't escort the loud makers out the house until they're eighteen.

Quiet can be better found outside our walls. Especially in winter when all sound freezes. But fall is quiet, too. Leaves make little sound when they crumble to the dirt road. Spring is loud with the world gone melty, and summer's sound is a buzzy one, but fall – you can clear your head with fall.

We don't take advantage. We usually fail to engage in long walks. We neglect to spend hours on the porch. Afternoons that could be spent hidden in the leaf pile are instead filled with mental and physical detritus – errands, meals, cleaning, chores. Slowing down is hard. Listening to the quiet and asking nothing of it is harder. Soon it will be winter and outside quiet won't be an option - freezing is a danger. Certain days I look forward to that excuse. Other days I notice golden passing by and shudder for not snaring it in some kind of web.

I say to myself “Do not go quietly into that good night.” And so when I need to be I am loud. When it’s called for I am boisterous. I stand up for what I think is right. Yet this is the way of everything these days, the bombardment is constant. As if to be louder and more outrageous is always better. It certainly gets you attention. Or at least that’s how it used to be.

Now I find myself wanting to unplug, disconnect, tunnel under and be still. These past few weeks have been cacophonous, jarring and discordant. The stress has become a constant pounding that would not be silenced. Our world has fallen apart and we are putting the pieces together again in a new configuration. Through it all my camera has become a lifeline. Each shutter click a step towards calmness. Looking through that lens the rest of the world falls away. To overstate the obvious, the camera gives me the ability to truly focus on the image that’s right in front of me. Not the one that was there or will be, just the image that is present.

This is the time of year we normally we visit our ocean. Due to circumstances beyond our control we’ve had to reschedule. Instead of making the trek southward, I spent some of the time with friends and made an attempt to distance myself from my weekly routines. My dear friend S took me on a walk this week. Not just any ramble, but a special meandering that you can only do with companions and their cameras. We took the time to enjoy our surroundings and really look at the details, instead of quickly passing them by on the way to somewhere else. Each time I pick up my camera without any real intention I am always amazed at the results. Once I get into the motion of looking and clicking I remind myself that the only real way to do anything is to actually do it—be it writing, painting, dancing, or playing an instrument. Wishing doesn’t make it so. There is an effort and involvement required. Without it there is nothing.

Patti Smith is on the cover of the latest New York Times magazine, which features several of her gorgeous silver gelatin prints. About her photography she says. “My dream is simply that they would have a place of honor over someone’s desk. When someone is reading or writing a letter or contemplating, they can look up and they would find a moment of serenity or a moment of centering from one of these little pictures.” I feel the same. If someone looks at these photos from the past two years and for a short time is transported out of their busy life, then the chance to spend a quiet moment is a gift I have received when I took the picture and one that I am then giving to those viewing the image I captured. Think of a photograph that captures your attention like a trip into Narnia through that beloved wardrobe. Be quiet, be still; look and listen.
~b

Nest Week’s Word: Green

Scissors

2011-10-10T10:29:00.001-04:00

Virginia Woolf wrote about a room of one’s own. I have dreamt of such a luxury, space that was mine to do with as I wish. Every time I put any serious thought to the matter, the details change shape and the specifics shift. Sometimes it’s just four walls, other times it’s over the top elaborate. But overall the idea is that I would have a place for all of my artistic endeavors. I once toured Eric Carle’s studio and I was in awe of his flat-drawered filing cabinets. These are the type that would hold maps flat, only he used them to store his beautiful handmade papers. I would certainly put a set of these to good use.

There would be cubbies for yarn, tall pots and jars for knitting needles. Rubber stamps displayed on a small set of shelves, ink pads in their own bins. Paint brushes, gluesticks, beads, and stickers all in a spot designed just for them. A repurposed card catalog would probably be perfect for this. My film cameras would be there somewhere on display, while the typewriters would sit in a place of honor. My latest idea involves a magnetic strip above my desk, the kind chefs use in kitchens for their knives. Such a space would allow me access to each of my scissors when I needed them: the orange-handled heavy duty pair, the tiny ones that cut so sharply and my favorite ones that produce a deckle edge.

Somewhere in the room there would be a bookcase filled with the works of inspirational artists. And hanging above it would be my new calendar featuring my most recent fixation—Nikki McClure. I’m not the type to buy a calendar in September but after years of wanting one, I finally decided to do it. More inspirational than practical, each month is a work of art unto itself. Nikki is a paper artist who starts with a piece of black paper and then cuts out the parts she doesn’t need. Every time I see one of her images, or look through one of her amazing children’s books, I am blown away. I would love to be talented in that manner, but more importantly I wish I had the ability to see images the way she does; to possess a perspective that confidently allows you to take away what you’ve started with, much as a sculptor clears away stone. Cutting those unneeded bits away allows you to see what’s been hidden, and to let the beauty shine through. If I could buy a pair of scissors (or any tool for that matter) that would allow me to trim the unnecessary pieces—instead of holding on for dear life because I will surely need each and every tiny scrap for something later—then I would do it. To toss them aside might actually be freeing. How does one make that leap? How to decide what to toss and what to keep?

Maybe someday I will have a room of my own; where I can sew, knit, paint, cut and create to my heart’s content. A girl can dream.
~b

In our house we have a problem with scissors. We run with them, we toss them across rooms, we hand them to each other blade first. But mostly we lose them. "Where are the [insert expletive or potty word here] scissors?!" is a common refrain, especially around the holidays or in May, when three of our five birthdays fall. Scissors, nail clippers, mechanical pencils, barrettes - someday we'll stumble upon a gleaming pile in the basement. Until then, we rage and weep for lack of scissors.

But - a few nights ago while feeding horses by headlamp I came upon these lying innocently on the ground, no idea they'd been searched for the past week. They'd been buried under a pile of hay raked out from the garage floor - or maybe they'd been on the garage floor and came along for the ride. The chickens had unearthed them earlier in the day. Those same chickens I'd sworn at for their pooping habit. I suppose if they insist on hiding their eggs at least they've earned part of their keep by finding the scissors.

Yesterday I used those scissors to cut pumpkin stems. Over a dozen pumpkins grew in our garden this year, which is weird since I planted watermelons. I severed the stems and hauled them to the front yard and L aimed the hose at the clumpy dirt that coated the waxy orange underneath. M, T and B stuffed old clothes with fresh hay to make three scarecrow boys that now stand at the end of the driveway, frightening passersby with their headless torsos. I keep catching sight of them through the window and wondering for a moment who's come into the yard. The pumpkins are curing now in these last sunny days. Soon there will be pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, jack o' lanterns. Thanks to the scissors, thanks to the chickens.

~a
Next Week’s Word: Quiet

Moon

2011-10-02T20:13:00.000-04:00

One year for Christmas, Santa left a telescope under the tree for me. I was...young. Eleven? Twelve? Old enough to not quite believe in Santa but young enough that I pretended to be a spy when I took the different lenses out and attached them to the viewer, unscrewing lens caps and blowing imaginary dust off the glass. I never pretended to be an astronomer. Until I made it outside under the stars and whispered the names of constellations under my breath.

I never saw much when I looked through the telescope. I must have used it sometimes in the summer but I only remember frigid air and frozen fingers, lashes that stuck when I pressed my eye too hard to the metal. I remember crusty snow, painful breath. I remember being mostly alone. Except once when my grandfather came out to look. He was the kind of grandfather who took pleasure in things. My father's father, he was also my mother's sixth grade teacher and thus boasted he'd had a hand in shaping both their minds and that's how they got along so well. When I knew him he was retired and deeply concerned about money, which did not stop him from taking me out to eat occasioanlly at expensive restaurants. He taught me what eccentric meant; he taught me that if I ever wanted to be a writer it was up to me; he was my first exposure to Bill Cosby. And he followed one night to take a peek through my telescope.

I suspect he saw as little as I was able. But he admired the instrument, he made suitable ahhh sounds when he looked up at the moon. We stood in the cold and shared an appraisal of the nighttime sky. Then he went back inside and I stayed out a little longer, trying desperately to discover a comet.

I still like to look up when I'm outside at night. We all do, don't we? We need those reminders of vastness. Our common disappointment, rage, hope, success - none of it comes close to filling the space around us. We've only got each other to impress; the universe doesn't much care.
~a

As the crisp Fall winds start to take up residence in our neighborhood, the days find excuses to end earlier and earlier. The sun leaves the sky before too long, and the moon makes an appearance at what seems to be an ungodly early hour. How did this happen, summer gone in the blink of an eye.

The moon for me has always represented a magical place. I knew that you could get there by flying like Peter Pan to the third star to the left or in a rocket like the brave astronauts of my childhood. If only I could see for myself if it was actually made of cheese, or how the man in the moon occupied his time when he wasn't gazing down at sleeping children.

When I first read Homer Hickam's “Rocket Boys” I felt as if my childhood had come back to greet me, the depressing air of a coal mining town swirling off of the page. Eventually Hickham's childhood memories went beyond the printed form, were made into a movie and renamed “October Sky.” When he was old enough T and I watched it together. As unfamiliar as my son was about the time period and the place, he laughed and enjoyed it overall. Despite their obvious differences, I think T found in Homer a curious, kindred spirit. My underlying, motherly hope had been that some of the movie's messages would seep into his bones: That hard work pays off, that school isn't all about sports, sometimes science can save you and wishing to go to the moon instead of a dead end job is not an impossibility.

These days I feel like the three of us are thinking about “What I Want to be When I Grow Up”-- some more intent on finding an immediate answer than others. In the grand scheme of things a job can be what pays the bills and what gets you through. But to discover what you love, what you really feel passionate about it, then the sky's the limit. Until then we'll put up with rainy days and the trees losing leaves as one season overtakes another. Knowing that a sunrise can bring about a new day, second chances, another shot at getting it right. A moonrise though, especially when it's full, can be otherworldly-- illuminating the dark, and making light the path where the shadows threaten to overtake you. By putting one foot in front of other you can stumble onto the stuff that our dreams are made of. With enough stubbornness, perseverance and faith you can somehow find a way to turn them into a reality.
~b

Next Week's Word: Scissors

Baby

2011-09-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

Knitting for someday baby. Come soon.

In the style of Hemingway’s six word piece, I thought this would be enough. I wanted it to be. But I felt that I needed to say more, the story behind the story.

I need to tell you about her, the baby that I hope will someday come to live here with the three of us.

You would think that after a certain age, one would tire of imaginary friends, having long since outgrown their usefulness. Yet most days I see her somewhere in my midst or think of her. Her features are unclear and her age changes depending upon the day of the week, the time or the activity that I am engaged in. We make reference to her often here, especially when the boisterous boys in my house begin their bantering. Sometimes I follow their witty offerings back and forth as if at a tennis match, other times I wish for another girl in the house to even things out and provide a bit of balance.

If you wish hard enough for something, with all of your might, will it come true? I picture her, the clothes she would wear. I try out dozens of names as if they were clothes on a paper doll. Esme, Tabitha, Maisie, Mariposa, Tatum, Mathilda, Sabine, Tullia, Beatrix, Etienne, Tesserae. Fitting them together with middle names like Jane, Gardner, Grace, Paige, Maeve, Patrice and Bea. This is my fall back activity, the undercurrent to everything, the puzzle that keeps my brain occupied. I pore over name books and websites thinking I may stumble onto a magic combination, the words that will bring her to me as if they held the same weight and power as Abra Cadabra or Hocus Pocus. Sadly I am not equipped with a wand, and we’ve already pulled a rabbit out of a hat. (We’ve got two. Three dogs and a cat.) And in some ways they’re like children. When we’re goofing around we often cradle the dogs like a baby, kiss them, hug them and snuggle. And yet I feel like there’s something more, something missing. I wonder: Has she been born? What does she look like? Will she somehow make her way to us through a series of related events about which I have no idea?

Or has our family reached its limit, with three of us who laugh, cry, read, eat, and love together? I have always believed the song I’ve sung since I was little, three is a magic number. When we hold hands everyone is touching everyone else. But I remind myself of the children’s stories I have read, remembering that there always room for one more.

Perhaps I should be happy to have made my way out of the land of sleepless nights, spit up and diaper changes. Looking forward I know that it won’t be long until our teenage son makes his solo flight to
his new life. Other mothers tell me that high school passes by in the blink of an eye. Are we really ready to do it all over again and become parents to a wee babe? I wonder and I worry. I wish and I wait. Mostly I wish for someone tiny and sweet who will wear handknit hats, socks and sweaters; dresses, ruffles and bows in her hair. Until she insists on overalls.
~b

The entertainment factor wasn't why I had my first baby, but it definitely popped up in consideration of the other two. Never do I laugh so hard than at my children. In a good way. Usually they get the joke and laugh along with me. Except the other day when Luca made a bike jump in the front yard and went over it in slow motion. He failed to see what was so funny about THAT. But we all giggled over this conversation at bedtime the other night:

Luca: “Would you want to find money or a baby raccoon?”

Me: “A baby raccoon.” [Not really. Money, any day.]

Luca: “Me too. I love baby raccoons.”

Barno: “I don't like baby raccoons.”

Luca: “Would you rather lose me or the guinea pigs?”

Me: “Guinea pigs.”

Luca: “Me too. Would you rather lose a dog's ear or a whole dog?”

Me: “A dog's ear.”

Luca: “Me too. I love our dogs.”

Barno: “I don't like dog's ear.”

Written down it lacks a certain...something. Like the muffled hysteria of a mother trying not to get her kids riled up at bedtime. Because as funny as I find them, I still want them to go to bed. On time. Without incident. Without extra water trips.

Tomorrow Barno spends a whole day at preschool for the first time ever, because... I'm starting a job. Out in the grownup world. Not full time, hell no. Baby steps, people, that's how life is accomplished. I'll be working only three days a week but for those three days my youngest, my baby, will be taken care of by a trio of ladies who might be getting paid better than me and will probably pay him more attention than I can manage for longer than a few minutes. But still. I am surprisingly veklempt at the thought. He's been my constant appendage for the past three and a half years; I might tilt when I walk through the office halls tomorrow.

But that's why there's yoga, and paychecks. To make us feel better about our choices, to make us realize that soon I'll walk upright as if nothing was missing. And nothing is. It's time for him to learn that other people can cut the crusts off his peanut butter sandwiches just as well as I can. It's time for me to learn I have skills beyond cutting crusts of sandwiches. And I get to wear grownup clothes, which will be fabulous for at least a day. Bye-bye, baby. Love you, baby. See you at quitting time.
~a

Next Week’s Word: Moon

Thirsty

2011-09-19T20:20:00.000-04:00

I am not a good mother to plants. I let them suffer until an untimely death, and then I shrug and toss them into the compost pile. I wish I had a greener thumb; I wish plants and cut flowers thrived in my house and lasted longer than the bag of potato chips I buy every Sunday, which lasts until...Monday.

I do better with things that can tell me when they're thirsty. Like the dogs who have mastered the art of looking reproachfully at their empty bowl. Or the kids, who have mostly learned to get their own drinks. The guinea pigs can squeal like nobody's business, and the largest horse, Carly, has a glare that can reach all the way to the bedroom where I'll feel it in my spine. No forgetting those animals.

But plants – poor plants. Sorry, plants. Maybe someday I will have a bit more space in my brain for you. Maybe someday I'll play host to an array of plants – violets, orchids, tea roses – settled in a tray of white pebbles, each in its own hand-painted pot, each sporting new growth and smiling blooms. But for now, please accept my apologies and know my neglect is not malicious. Rest in peace.

With the start of school for two of us and holiday planning in not-too-far distant future, there have been some sleepless nights recently. Often those bouts of insomnia put you in touch with inspiration, and somehow ideas that come in the wee hours are brilliant and fully formed. Almost as if by magic. Despite feeling tired, we are desperately trying to lay claim to the last bits of summer right now, taking advantage of every moment to soak up each spare sun ray.

It occurred to me on one of those thrashabout nights, that what I want to have next summer is a lemonade stand--but for grown ups. Let’s say you’re dropping off a child at a playdate, then stop on by for a glass of something cold. And if you’re planning a bike trip, try to steer your group past my house, nothing appeases your thirst like a sparkling beverage.

I’ll have several drinks to choose from: cordials, syrups, and elixirs that can be splashed in some seltzer or lemonade for a little something special. Come try a little rhubarb, mint or ginger. Each concoction created in our kitchen, with more than enough to share. Would you like a tall glass or a small one? Most will be reclaimed jars; some wide mouthed, some that used to hold jelly, but all make a satisfying clink when you toss in a few cubes. And I’ll make sure we have a freezer stocked with ice cubes a plenty.

So this winter as you wrap your hands around another cup of tea or mug of hot chocolate, try to remember what it felt like to be warmed by the sun, and how thirsty you were after being outside for so long. Know that next summer you’re always welcome to stop on by for a cold drink. I’ll have sprigs of mint and lemon verbena for a festive garnish, some cut up citrus fruit that you can toss in just for fun. The sun will make the ice jewel-like and beautiful. A refracted rainbow in each glass.

As the snow piles up outside my door, it will blanket the grass and flowers. Life will be a little quieter with time for reflection, dreams and desires. Sipping from these thoughts will keep me going through the endless winter months. I can almost taste it now.

~b

Next Week's Word: Baby

Heavy

2011-09-12T13:27:00.000-04:00

I wish for a claw footed tub the way some people used to desire indoor plumbing, a vintage bike the way some people pined for a Model T to replace their horse-drawn wagon. Something inside me yearns for a simpler time and so I try to surround myself with old-fashioned devices. I long for ones that feel sturdy to the touch like tin cookie cutters passed down from a grandmother to her beloved progeny. These are the treasures that move through the generations, hand to hand to hand.

Feeling that heavy weight in my own palm instills me with a calmness that flimsy plastic just can’t conjure. There’s a trust there, as if something that has worked for so long will always be dependable. In some circles the word heavy may mean difficult or burdensome, in others the meaning may be substantial, durable and enduring. For always.

Yet even the biggest and strongest anything is not guaranteed to last. A plane can topple a skyscraper, a flood can leave houses in ruins. What you thought would always be, is suddenly no more.

Even after the worst catastrophes there are survivors, certain items that remain. Somehow they become even stronger for having lasted. These are the items we pass down with reverence. The ones that are of use--like teapots and juicers--become desired by future generations, not the silly rings and things that have been locked up in a box. Of course they will survive. But day in day out, the items we use have a story connected to them. It gives them a luster, a particular history that deepens the patina. They glimmer and glow with a shine not seen by everyone. If you are at a flea market or antique shop, look for it. When you see it, you’ll know.

In this day and age it seems silly to be in love with typewriters, fountain pens, rotary fans and hand mixers, yet these are the things that give me pleasure. Each is so much heavier than their modern day counterparts, which is reason enough for people to shy away from using them. But these items bring with them a story, each were created in a time when craftsmanship mattered. In today’s world lightweight is becoming synonymous with disposable. Use it for a short time, throw it away, end of story.

Even so our lives cannot be filled with heavy things, sometimes a little levity is needed. Bubbles, dandelion puffs, pink clouds floating and a long list of others lift my spirits when I need them most. Holding on to a cluster of balloons and flying high above it all sounds magical. In the midst of the noise and swirling chaos the tap of a typewriter key centers me, the click of a shutter helps me focus. They remind me to keep my two feet grounded, my two wheels touching the earth below.

To reference a quote held dear by our friends “We love the things we love for what they are.” These words written by Frost so long ago speak to me of those things that have survived, that become special because we love them. They become imbued with our memories which can only give them a heavier weight, a gravitas that will help them endure. For now and for always.
~b

Yesterday, Sunday, September 11, we harvested potatoes. I planted these potatoes in the rain last spring, in tall grain bags that I weighted with dirt and a quarter of potato. I planted a few in the horse paddock, small hills of dark dirt. I added more dirt, and more as the summer went on and the potato quarters sprouted into bushy green plants. A month or so ago the plants all died and I thought the Great Potato Blight had recurred in smaller form. I shrugged off the disappointment. Yes, planting those things and tending them, even at a minimal rate, was a lot of work. But we could go to the Co-op and restock. We'd still have potato soup, roasted potatoes, potato salad, mashed potatoes. We would not starve. We would not die.

But still. It stung, just a bit. A gardening slap in the face.

Saturday night I came back downstairs after putting a child or two in bed. In the sink: four potatoes. Dinner was long over and preparation for the next meal wasn't scheduled to start for another ten hours. The potatoes did not belong. Except, maybe...

“One of the horses dug up some potatoes,” M reported from the porch, a gentleman farmer in black rubber boots and a headlamp. We went back out to investigate. M dumped one of the potato bags and five more Yukon golds rolled up to the surface of the dirt. What I had mistaken for disaster was only the natural process of growing potatoes. And now we have a harvest.

On Sunday I was good for a few bags, but the weight was too great and I let M take the job of lifting and dumping all that used dirt onto the ground. B and I sifted through the muck with our hands. It was sunny, warm but not hot. Blue sky after the fog burned off. Not quite the brilliance we had ten years ago, but close.

For dinner we ate roasted potatoes, red beans and rice, salad and apple crisp made from the apples we'd picked earlier at the local orchard. We sat at the picnic table with friends and family. We shivered a bit in the coming cold. We were happy to be together, with potatoes.

Next week's word: Thirsty

Bed

2011-09-05T11:27:00.000-04:00

Reasons I can't sleep on any given night:

1. I'm hungry.

2. I'm worried about famine, nuclear threat, and friends with cancer.

3. I have a deadline that I'll meet with no problem but part of the process of meeting the deadline is worrying about it. So I do, late at night.

4. Children are sick, or might be sick, or expressed some version of sickness right before bed and now I wait tensely for the first sounds of sick.

5. Someone said something angry to me in the past twelve hours. I know this is ridiculous. I am 36 years old and should be well over ingesting other peoples' anger. But I like it when everyone likes me and hate it when one person doesn't.

6. We're broke. I mean, we aren't broke, but again, part of the process of staying not broke is worrying that we're broke, so I do. Late at night.

7. There's a storm outside and maybe trees will fall on us. So I stay awake and plan escape routes.

8. More than two other people occupy my pillow.

9. M is running a marathon in his sleep. And cheats by trying to trip the runner next to him. I'm the runner next to him.

10. I can't stop thinking how tired I'll be tomorrow. How hard it will be to maintain some semblance of order in the house. Those of you who have seen my house will laugh at the idea of order within, but trust me, it could be so much worse. And will be if I don't get to sleep soon.

11. It's hot.

12. I forgot someone's birthday.

I wish I could sleep as soundly as my dogs do when they manage to sneak onto the bed and stretch out in the occasion of morning sun. I stand above them and look down disapprovingly while they pretend they are far, far away, but really I'm envious. Of their stillness of body and mind.
~a

In this bed:

We do lingering
We do mismatched sheets and pillowcases
We do dog cuddling
We do handknitted blankets
We do comforting
We do naps
We do sneaking in just one more chapter
We do laughing
We do hot water bottles
We do recharging
We do writing and planning
We do escaping the world
We do breakfast for dinner
We do listening to the rain on the roof
We do family read-alouds
We do watching late-night movies on the laptop
We do dreaming, hoping and wishing

Make love not war is honored here.

Note: To see the inspiration for this post, click here.
http://lillies-and-lace.tumblr.com/post/8618370594

~b

Next Weeks Word: Heavy

Lion

2011-08-30T13:04:00.001-04:00

In like a lion, out like a lamb... or so the saying goes. In a weird twist of fate, The Storm (Hurricane Irene) has joined forces this weekend with The Beginning of School to morph into some weird lion headed beast battling against The End of Summer. Sadly it's not an even match and it's very apparent who will win. How does one fight back such a ferocious monster? Some would take up the chair and the whip to try to beat it into submission. I speak from experience when I say that tactic doesn't usually work. Fighting rage with rage never does. I lost it this week as I screamed ferociously about the state of T's Lego-strewn room. I think back onto that time and am appalled by my reaction. Deep down inside I know it's Time that is my enemy, threatening to turn my child into a high schooler--a transformation that starts in just a few short days. I am not one to take transitions smoothly.

Instead I've been turning my attention towards ways we can enjoy what's left of Summer as it fades away. Thursday T and I braved the rains to tour our favorite Farmer's Market where we met another mom and son dynamic duo. They had also braved the elements to bring their cart and delicious food to friends and neighbors. After an amazing meal of crepes and samosas T and I made our way home as the rains lifted. There was a moment on the highway when we glanced over to a breathtaking view of the setting sun casting the clouds and mountains in a golden hue. The fog was lifting, giving off an ethereal aura, as if we were traveling somewhere magical. T expressed his sadness that I couldn't stop to photograph it. I told him that I was truly happy to see it with him. That is what I want to remember, a scene I can replay in the years to come, not some humongous hissy fit about an untidy bedroom.

Last night I came home to an empty house. Seizing the moment of solitude I made a batch of blackberry scones for us to have at breakfast this morning. Armed with a cup of tea (a lovely lemongrass given to me by a dear friend) and an oat scone I spent the morning preparing for the coming storm. Part of that time involved listening to the new Matt Nathanson CD. At one point we were all up dancing, and I thought this, I want to remember this.

Afterwards we all got our rain jackets and headed to the car to do some much needed school shopping before the heavy rains came. We were all so unnaturally suited up, that T remarked something like “In Which We Head Out on an Expedition .” I could see it as a chapter heading in a book of stories. For this is a new chapter which we are about to begin. The two are so intertwined, and ironically you can't have an ending without a beginning. It's taken me years to come to this realization, but that doesn't mean I can accept any easier. Still, I have hope...

It just might be that Matt's new CD, “Modern Love” was the perfect music choice for us this morning. Looking through the booklet I saw lyrics such as 'less drowning, more land.' And 'you blew through me like a hurricane.' But in commenting about the inspiration behind these songs Nathanson writes that they were compiled around the idea of things 'smashed up against each other, working together.' The lion and the lamb, an exciting starting point and a slow quiet end. I know I'm not ready for the warm weather to leave us, nor I am ready for my son to enter this new phase in his life. And I am torn, between wanting to fight and fret or sit and be calm, making the last of these few moments. I know it does me no good to roar at the elements or the passing of time, both of which can make me insanely crazy at times. But I do know that armed with a good cup of tea and space to sit and enjoy it I can prepare myself for almost anything.

As the day drew to close we three sat in bed to read aloud from our current book, flashlights at the ready. The winds grew increasingly loud and gusted to high speeds. I watched my son jump up and walk out into them, a thrilled look on his face. Some of us love beginnings, it seems. I can see he's ready to embrace the excitement and make his own way.
~b

Our lone sunflower is a volunteer.

Usually I plant a row or two along our front porch. Almost every year here since our first we've had a line of nodding sunflowers standing in haphazard, ineffectual guard. One year they nearly grew to the second-story windows; neighbors were placing bets. But this year, I missed the moment. Spring was hectic. I managed the tomatoes, the pumpkins, the potatoes which are now dead. I'm pretty sure I ordered sunflower seeds. I think I have several packets of seeds drifting somewhere in the house, maybe behind the guinea pig cages, or in the kitchen desk. Maybe in a boy's room. But only one flower in the yard and that one had to grow by its own effort.

It may not be there tomorrow. The wind has picked up. I don't know if you've heard, but there's this hurricane? Irene? Today was mostly rain. Our road is sink-holed, our basement is a lake. And we are lucky – our power is persistent and our structures are whole. Old covered bridges around the valley are crumbling with the weight of all that water. The towns to the east and west of us are flooded. I can hear our stream – that usually by this time of year is a weak trickle – roaring outside my window.

And maybe we'll lose some trees, a few boards off the coop, another inch or so of driveway gravel. As long as my family stays safe. And if I could put one more wish on the list – let the sunflower stay upright. She's got courage, that lion-faced flower, making her lone way in the wilds of my yard.

Edited: posting was delayed by intermittent internet difficulty. The sunflower survived upright. But my basement of books did not. Still, we are firmly in the camp of lucky.

Next Week's word: Bed

Joy

2011-08-21T18:25:00.000-04:00

When the fair comes to town...
~a

Thief

2011-08-15T10:47:00.002-04:00

When our little threesome left the big city for life in a northern town, we were still working for a large company and had the great fortune of having someone else come and move us. At first they sent just one guy to pack everything up. M said he watched him assess the four flights of stairs with a bit of apprehension, still confident that it was altogether an easy job. How much stuff could one attic apartment hold? I guess his jaw dropped when he saw that we basically had enough to furnish a whole house crammed into three little rooms. I would have liked to have been there to comfort him, maybe even lead him to the closets to show him the forty boxes we never unpacked the whole time we lived there. (See some of your work is already done...) Instead, eight-month old T and I spent the day at the local big bookstore reading, playing and having a bit of shortbread, or two. I found it to be eerily like the last few weeks of pregnancy. I had scheduled my maternity leave to start a week before my due date. (I really had no intention of going into labor at work, which would only confound my chances of getting to the hospital near my home.) One young co-worker suggested that I have the baby in the store elevator, that way everyone could watch. I quietly vetoed that idea and stayed with the original plan of being home and heading to the hospital at the appropriate time. As you can only imagine, that didn't turn out as expected. Our plumbing went out in the apartment so I spent a few days at the local bookstore looking at parenting magazines and imagining what the next few months would be like. And I read, in fact I finished a whole book just waiting.

Now eight months later I was back with baby in tow as the movers (more than one, as they realized our original guy needed reinforcements) packed our life's belongings to load into the truck as we made our way to be closer to M's family in Michigan. The stroller was loaded with diapers, wipes, and a change of clothes-- everything we might need for the day. I had a tiny little wallet on a string that held my drivers license and a silver pen that was molded into the shape of a fish. It had been a present from M and I loved having it with me, the heft of it in my hand. One minute it was hanging from the stroller, the next minute it was gone. I searched the store, the bathrooms, the magazine racks and children's area-- no luck. I felt slightly bereft, and have often thought of that time since. I think of a silver pen, the hand that holds it and wonder...

It may be more on my mind recently because there have been a rash of robberies in our little town. Neighbors have been talking in hushed tones about missing computers, tools, instruments and other items that have enormous sentimental value. I really don't think we have anything that a thief would even want to take. Yet there are some things that I can't imagine living without, the loss would be unbearable. Listening to these neighborly conversations I have decided that I don't want to walk around with a look of suspicion on my face, a sense of vulnerability my constant companion. Instead I would hope that if someone wanted something of mine, if they desperately needed it-- that they would just ask. I would be happy to give something freely rather than have it taken from me. Here's the key, please take only what you need, and only if you promise to give it a good home.
~b

I'm sitting in the tent, in the rain. It's raining. Hard. The tent leaks. And every rainy camping trip from my childhood is in here with me. All those loud days of boredom, all those damp pages turned in hopes by the end of the book the sun would come out. The cranky whine of a ten year old is tickling the back of my throat, as if any minute adult me will succumb to the verbal tools of a child. But only dear b is here to witness my tantrums, and so I keep them confined and tame, adult. Instead I mention casually that coffee is too far away, all the way down the road in the city. I bad-mouth the communal showers, call them functional. My fingers peck the keys in the same anti-rhythm as the drops on the stretched nylon above me.

But, really, rain, couldn't you have waited a few days? You've been fairly obliging all summer, one more week might have made me love you. You are stealing my three days of beach reading right out from under me. You are stealing my campfire. You are stealing photos of the sunlight bouncing off various objects both still and in motion. I'd like to walk to the bathrooms without getting wet. I'd like to take a walk. I'd like to quit glancing along the edges of the floor to measure the size of the puddles forming there; those tiny shores are getting closer to my sleeping bag.

I know the garden at home needs you. I know I should be grateful. People all over the world are dying for want of rain. But right now, here, you are a thief in my flimsy tent.
~a

Next Week's Word: Joy

Loud

2011-08-08T09:09:00.001-04:00

Last week I was Very Brave three times. I won't go into details, mostly because by listing my Brave Deeds on “paper” they'd be immediately subject to deflation. They'd go all lowercase and then I'd feel sad. So, trust me. I was Brave.

But along with Bravery comes an increase in the volume of the voices in my head. I know you know what I'm talking about. I'm sure there are people in the world capable of consistent confidence - I've seen them in movies - but most of the people I hang around with are not immune to the voices: “You can't do this. You're not smart enough. You're not good enough. You're stupid to even try. Quit now before you make a fool out of yourself. You're stupid and ugly. And fat. And it took you seven years to learn how to cook eggplant. Because you're so stupid.”

I know! None of these things are actually true; it only took me five years to learn how to cook eggplant (the trick, I discovered, is in soaking the damn thing in salt water before you coat it in the bread crumbs). But those voices can be so loud it's hard not to be convinced of kernels of truth. A haircut helps. Cookies help. Drinks out with friends who don't even say once “Um, don't you think you're a bit too stupid for that?” when you reveal your three Brave Things – that helps. And age helps, even though one of the voices' favorite criticism is that I'm getting too old to wear certain shirts. The older I get the better I get at ignoring the noise around me. It's survival. If you listen, if you let those voices get loud enough to make you change your shirt, than it's like flowers dying on a vine. You're all brown dust and useless petals.

The Sound of Style

I brought a hat to the hospital to wear
when we were brought the baby home.
At the last minute I panicked,
unsure if I could wear it.
My husband said to me:
“You will only bring this brand new boy
home once in your life.
You should wear what your heart desires.”
Some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

I try to hold those words in my heart
most mornings as I head to the closet,
not sure what to put on.
I often choose a patterned shirt or a colorful pair of pants,
only to hang them up again
in favor of being more conservative.

Truth be told, I love to wear my hair in pigtails,
to twirl in skirts with ruffles flying,
to put a pair of maryjanes on my feet and dance across the floor.
You might think I was inspired by the many young girls
that I see every day.
The ones that insist on dressing themselves,
the cry “I do myself” a constant refrain in the mornings.
Each outfit consisting of layers and prints that go together
perfectly—in their eyes.
If you were to think that I aspire to be like that,
you would be right.

Yet I worry that others will look my way
and think me silly,
that I am too old to be dressing as a child.
There is a fine line between brash and bold.
But in this day and age of media, ads and commercials
that yell their messages at the top of their lungs
and insist that you pay attention;
someone out there is always willing to
instruct on the latest fashions and insist on an acceptable style.
In response the voice inside becomes quiet and harder to hear.

Stop what you’re doing right now and listen to it.
There’s no need for you to follow the crowd.
Do not go gently into that good night.
Live your life out LOUD.
Be bold, bright and vibrant,
and always wear the shoes that make you happiest.
~b

Next Week’s Word: Thief

Doctor

2011-08-01T10:02:00.000-04:00

In Michael Chabon’s latest book, “Manhood for Amateurs,” two of the essays made me instantly smile with recognition. The first “To the Legoland Station” is quite obvious. Anyone who knows us has an idea of the number of LEGOs that reside here in bins, baskets and occasionally find their way to the floor to be discovered by an unsuspecting foot in the middle of the night. And though T is not as passionate about them as he used to be, he is in there scraping through drawers as I write; that familiar scratching sound of hands-moving-bricks-in-search-of-the-exact-right-piece making its way to my ears. The second essay, “The Amateur Family,” deals with my son’s latest obsession: Dr. Who. Chabon writes of his family’s intense love for this British sci-fi TV show, despite that fact that no one else really knows anything about it. This, he states, makes them geeks or nerds, though he doesn’t feel that either is quite the right moniker. Instead he feels an affinity with the term amateur: ‘someone who a lover, a devotee, a person driven by passion and obsession to do it--to explore the imaginary world-oneself.’

That certainly describes T, he somehow stumbled onto the show and has been in love ever since. He makes his allegiance known with tshirts, books and two sonic screwdrivers. (I guess it’s always good to have a spare.) I can only chuckle as I remember sitting with my own dad humoring his passion for cheesy effects and intriguing storylines as we watched the Doctor. If you’re not familiar with the show I won’t go into any details here, but urge you to do your own research. We as a family haven’t embraced the Doctor as one of our own, rather T has found himself a community of like- minded friends. He alternates between watching an episode with a group of kids from school one week, then spending a Saturday evening with an older British couple who are every bit as enthusiastic about plot twists as T himself. Collectively they all express outrage and sadness at the cliffhanger endings then as we reluctantly start the excruciating wait until the next season. Yet this down time affords the opportunity for poring over Who-related magazines and speculating about what will happen next. At times like this we hear so much about the Doctor and his companions that I start to wonder if I should set a place for them at dinner. What does one serve a regenerated time lord? I guess I’ll have to consult Martha and my own magazines for the proper etiquette.

Thinking about this intense love of characters both on screen and on the page reminded me of the read alouds we have done over the years as a family. What I love most is how certain phrases and words then work their way into our family vernacular. One of us will often hug a dog fiercely while exclaiming “He’s so fluffy!” in the style of “Despicable Me,” or sit down to eat pantomiming the fantastic movements of Mr. Fox as he devours his breakfast. In times of trouble we often are heard murmuring ‘Oh waily, waily, waily…’ as if the Wee Free Men were right here with us. These words, phrases, short hand if you will, make me happy to be a part of the very thing Chabon was addressing, the amateur family. As he puts it, ‘…maybe all along part of my desire to have so many children was the longing for a fan club to belong to, for imaginative fellowship, for the society of passionate amateurs like me.’

In an essay Noel Perrin wrote several years ago, he details his family’s love for “Watership Down.” It was a read aloud which was beloved by many family members. They even went so far as to choose one
of the rabbit words for their car’s license plate. Some days they would be driving along and would be greeted by a series of intense honks and waves. Knowing that they had met up with some kindred spirits who shared their love of Adams’s book, they eagerly honked in reply. I too loved “Watership Down” and when my bunny Dickens had a litter they were immediately named after the rabbits in the book. It was years ago, but I still remember that Pipkin was the runt and the sweetest one of all. On the back of our car we now proudly display a Dr. Who bumper sticker, it seemed an obvious choice given that we drive a big blue box. If you happen to see us scooting down the highway or tootling down a dirt road in your neighborhood, be sure to give us a honk or an enthusiastic wave; we’ll just assume you’re another one of those Whovians eager to meet up with a fellow fan.

Here's what I say to my middle boy whenever he does something horrifying and amazing: "Good thing you're made of rubber." That kid cheats death four times a day. He leaps down stairs, he crashes into walls and other sturdy objects, he flies through the air from great heights. Like the other day when I picked him up from his last day of camp. Instead of letting the swing slow down and dismounting from a more bearable speed he let go at the apex (still higher than my head) and landed in a belly flop on the grass. Counselors came running, an older man walking past whistled, and I shrugged. "Good thing you're made of rubber." L brushed off his tummy and set upon the impossible task of finding his lunch pack in the wilds of camp equipment.

My older boy is the opposite. T carries band-aids in his school bag. He is always reminding us to stay hydrated. Last week we ventured to the public swimming pool for the first time and the first thing he said was - after he made it verbally clear that he was not going in the water - "Oh good, they have a defibrillator on site." Future doctor? Nurse? EMT? I can see him going into health care not out of a sense of altruism but because dammit, the world is a dangerous place and someone's got to be able to fix this constant mess. I'd be rather grateful if he learned how to stitch, staunch, and splint the broken bones his younger brother flirts with on an hourly basis. Then I'd feel less guilty when L comes to me in tears and blood and the best I can do is apply a boo-boo kitty.

Same genes, same environment. Vastly different boys.
~a

Next Week's Word: Loud

Butter

2011-07-25T20:50:00.002-04:00

I'm more of a winter person than a summer person. I like fires in the fireplace, stew, red wine, a chilly kitchen warmed by the smell of baking bread. I like our bed, warm with two, three, four, sometimes five bodies, an island of cozy in a frigid room where ice creeps up the inside of the window glass. I like snow. I'm ready for spring when it comes, but it's not long into our growing season before I start seeking out signs of fall: well-stacked woodpiles, that tree at the end of the road that starts showing hints of color in its tallest branches earlier than anything else. I know, I know. Live in the moment. Make peace with the present. Gather ye rosebuds...

The boys and I have a summer tradition. We bake cookies - even in soaking wet heat like last week - and eat them lying on a blanket in the yard reading books. The last two years, though, I've noticed that our summer tradition happens more in the winter than summer. We bake cookies while snow or rain falls outside and then eat them lying on a blanket in the living room in front of the fire, reading books and reminding each other that soon we'll get to do this outside on a patch of grass. But then the world turns green and we forget. We are swimming, hiking, camping, lounging and forgetting about cookies and blankets and books. But still, it's our summer tradition. Eating cookies in the winter wouldn't feel quite right if we didn't do it with the hazy specter of heat and light nodding at our shoulders.

I made cookies this morning so the boys would have something sweet in their camp snacks. At six am, the only creature awake beside the black dog, I melted butter in a sauce pan and poured the resulting liquid sunshine over sugar, brown and white. Stir, stir, stir, add other things both dry and wet, and voila, a plate full of love to greet my cranky morning kiddos. I imagined many things about motherhood, most of them wrong, but I never even suspected that baking cookies at an unearthly hour could make me so...complete. Or that I would ever say yes when asked "Cookies for breakfast?" Sure. Have a cookie. Have two.
~a

I bought some buttermilk last week in anticipation of making s’more whoopie pies for a party T was attending. Fortunately the recipe didn’t call for much and I planned to use the rest for waffles. They would be, I imagined, the perfect way to send T off to circus camp. That morning was filled with last-minute packing and our meal was merely sustenance rather than celebratory. I almost forgot all about it, in fact, until we started carrying the duffel bags and pillows up the three flights of stairs to his room in the dorm. The counselors always do an excellent job of caring for the kids, teaching them and getting them excited to perform. Every year T comes home with many stories of the fun he’s had with them, and it’s one the reason he keeps going back. This year, as we made our way up the stairs, I saw that they had done something a little different. Using crayons and markers they had handlettered signs that said things like “Good Times,” “You Rock,” and “Joy.” The one that made me smile said “Like hot melted butter on a stack of flapjacks,” complete with someone’s own tiny rendition of breakfast. It seemed out of place among the other signs, but it conveyed a sense of comfort and sweetness.

I’ve been thinking about that sign all week, kicking myself for not having photographed it. The temps have been so hot that I’ve not felt like eating anything, but rather have come to fully understand what
it’s like to: Be the Butter. Not that I’ve ever had to imagine this before, but I have felt the effect of this intense heat on my brain--basically turning it to mush. Though some would say to stay out of the kitchen this week, I’ve been there more often than not these past few days. While T is away I am helping at another camp, one that he has attended since he was five. (If things work out next year he’ll be going as a counselor in training.) I’ve been helping prepare the food there for as long as I can remember. It is the highlight of my summer and I look forward to it all year long. I enjoy seeing how much the all kids have grown, but to be honest I think of it as an excuse to bake--as much as my heart desires. With close to 150 kids of all ages, there’s always someone to polish off the muffins, granola or quickbread.

One of my favorite poems, “Irreverent Baking” is by Maya Stein. I chose to read at my graduation because it puts into words how I feel about my life’s work. She packs so much into this line: “the house inked with the smell of blueberry possibility.” That’s what baking is to me, possibility. Each time I find a new recipe I get inspired. When I pull out the ingredients I get excited, almost little-girl giddy. But when I put the butter and sugar in the mixer, then it becomes real to me. At first the butter is clunky but soon becomes smooth, coming together with the sugar to create something light and fluffy. No matter how many times I perform this act I still feel reverence for what it can do, for me and for others. Such simple things but they are a gift. I have been missing my son tremendously, even though I know he’s having the time of his life juggling and clowning around. When T comes back at the end of the week, I know just what to make to welcome him home.
~b

Next Week's Word: Doctor

Square

2011-07-18T12:57:00.000-04:00

If Life really is a game, then I need to get a clue on the best way to play. Sometimes I think it’s not, but then other times I wonder. I tell myself that everything is going to be fine, then when I least expect it, we run into a spate of trouble that sends us reeling backwards. Sadly I’m the type of person that becomes consumed with worrying how we’re ever going to get ahead. (Will we ever buy a house, adopt a baby, raise some chickens?!?) Occasionally luck shines down upon us with good fortune, and then the money leaves our hands just as quickly. A pay raise at work will surely mean a car repair will spring up out of nowhere and suddenly become necessary. It’s hard not to feel as if it’s all a game of chance; for no matter how hard you try, you never really know what the day will bring. It all depends on the roll of the dice.

Too often I try to look out far on the horizon to see what’s coming. I’d like to gain some perspective and get a sense of what lies ahead. When I’m in despair I crane my neck to get a better view, wishing I could know how far we are from a goal or some sort of end spot. When we reach that space, it’s always a reason for a celebration. (We take them wherever we can get them, including half birthdays and first date anniversaries.) If only there was some secret knowledge that could be passed along so that I could keep my footing even while climbing that ladder and somehow avoid falling down a chute. Such a fall can be devastating, causing us to have to pick everything up and start all over again. It’s happened enough times now, that I’ve become proud of my resiliency and stubbornness. That which does not kill us… In spite of it all, I’d much rather be here than not. Each day I’m just moving my piece along, and maybe looking for a little peace as well. Most mornings I just try to wake up and be happy with the square I landed on.

Cards to a Charley Harper memory game.
Living room table where we eat together and never quite fit. But we make do.
Frame. Empty.
Hole (round peg).
Picassoey side of T's Rubik's Cube.
Window.
Desktop. Not really a desk. A small table on which my laptop rests. Where I work, except when I work in the car.
Scrabble board. A possession for which I'd return to a burning house.
Stovetop.
Cabinet doors. Mostly decorated with stickers.
Frame. Which encompasses a photo of a typewriter and the words: Real writers really write. A reminder that there is work to do.
Block of painted wood. White.
CD cases. Most of which haven't been opened in a decade.
Meals.
Homemade book from Michigan beach trip when T was one year old and L was nowhere in sight. And B was even further away.
Wedding invitation hanging by the door. A reminder, when we go out into the world, that someone is on our side.
~a

Next week's word: Butter

City

2011-07-11T10:58:00.000-04:00

Most of what I know of cities comes from books. I suppose this is what books are for: exposure to places (and people, and things) that we've had little chance to see for ourselves. Unless you count Atlanta; I lived in Atlanta for a couple of years. Plus a few summers. But Atlanta is a city only if cities are defined by long highways static with traffic, and constant air conditioning, and radios stolen from Jeeps. There must have been good things about Atlanta. I do recall with a warm feeling a movie theater that played not-new movies and a used bookstore right beside it perfect for wasting the half hour or so before the not-new movies started. And I once had an amazing brunch at a restaurant on Peachtree St. But, jeez, the roaches? The smell of garbage in the summer? The careful blankness of almost every face? I remember Atlanta as a place waiting to sneer at me.

When I was 18 I was pretty sure that New York City was where I was supposed to end up. Instead I went to western Mass. And then Atlanta. And then New Hampshire, where my road is dirt and I know nearly every car that passes the house. This morning a guy named Dave who lived in his truck for a while and rarely wears a shirt when it's warm turned up at our door at 7:30 with two fish he'd caught on a fishing trip with his dad. This is not a guy you'd mistake for someone with a retirement account, but there he was, bearing fish. Does this happen in cities? It must. Maybe not with fish, but with something, right? Like, art work? Fine wine? Country mice and city mice can't be that different.

Maybe when I'm gray and creaky I'll move to a city and shock my poor children, who'll worry about me riding the subways alone and climbing all those stairs to my apartment. I'll be one of those women who brandishes her cane whenever she feels the hint of threat, who carries mace in each coat pocket and calls the police at least once a week to report a suspicious stranger on the fire escape. More likely I'll be oblivious to even the obvious dangers. Probably I'll find myself wedged in an open manhole within hours of my arrival. Because I'll be looking up at all the concrete mountains instead of down at the street.

L'Engle's New York, Byatt's London, Fox's New Orleans - these are the cities I want to see. The real places have always been pastel in comparison whenever I've had the chance to visit. But so have corresponding countrysides. I'd like to vow that next time I visit a city I'll discard all those expectations bred from literary sampling. But I've read too much. I've gone too far. Those two-dimensional cities are bound forever to their real-life counterparts. I'm a country mouse at heart, but I do plan on more visits to bustling cities where food can delivered to your door (swoon) once my babies aren't quite so attached to my legs. Because it's awful difficult to slip through a subway turnstile with boys hanging from your waist.
~a

Driving down to Boston a few weeks ago, my friend was in the passenger seat navigating. She consulted the map, advised me to turn at the stoplight, not knowing we would be going the wrong way down a one way street. I waited for the cars to pass and then quickly turned us around. She marveled at my calm exterior and remarked that I had my City Face on. I knew just what she meant. Somehow entering an area with tall buildings, a place with many people passing by on the streets, traffic and an industrial hum in the air, just arouses something inside of me. Another self I didn’t know existed.

When I worked in the World Trade Center there were definitely times I needed my City Arms. Arms to hold my pregnant self steady as the bus rounded a corner. And many muscles were often needed to lug the new baby up four flights of stairs to our attic apartment while carrying groceries or laundry. As a firsttime mom I couldn’t ever bring myself to leave him alone, so he traveled down with me each time, while I grabbed another bag or basket for the return trip up. Now that he’s taller than I am, I often wish for those days when he was small enough to fit into a car seat.

Visiting Venice required City Feet. My friend and I were only there for a day, but we made the most of it. We spent the morning walking every street and crossing each bridge multiple times in search of a certain man who made tiny glass animals. We finally found him, then we walked around trying to decide on the perfect place for lunch and then spent the afternoon looking for a glass ring. When I laid my eyes on that particular shade of cobalt blue I knew I had found the one. At day’s end, we walked back to the train station and headed out for the next adventure.

I’ve only been to Paris once, but it was a week I will always remember. The moment I set foot in the city, I was instantly reminded of my time living in New York. It was much more urban than I had ever imagined. All of that time spent lovingly poring over pictures in books and magazines, I felt like I knew what to expect. Yet it’s not gallery or a collection of places just quietly waiting for someone to notice them. Paris is a vibrant, light filled, densely populated place. There is an intensity there that I miss living here in Vermont. It may be that when I visited, I left some of my City Heart behind. Maybe someday I’ll go back and claim it.

To be honest, there is something about all cities that I love. People living side by side, and a diversity of population that is lacking here. In a city most of what one needs for day-to-day living can be found within walking distance. Tiny shops like the aptly name “Just Rugelach” are right outside your office window. Tall, tall buildings created from an architect’s vision soar into the sky. Often they are a testament to the men who painstakingly built them up from nothing. I think what I miss most about living there is the chance to walk down the busy sidewalks while keeping my eyes directed upward-- not looking down for fear of missing a graceful cornice or a unique window.

When I worked in New York I once went with some friends to the very top of our building. It is one of my very fondest memories. We made or way through a small (I like to think secret) passageway to gaze out at the city and the lights below. We were so high I’m sure we could have almost reached out and touched the clouds.
~b

Next week's word: Square

Tobacco

2011-07-04T18:40:00.000-04:00

My father’s parents lived near us, a short jaunt up the road. Because of our proximity to them and because my grandmother couldn’t seem to cook a meal for just two, we spent a great deal of time there. My mother’s parents lived several towns over, and we visited them about once a month. We often went on a Sunday to sit around the dining room table and catch up what had happened since we last saw each other. Most of the year we were served hot tea, which included an ice cube for the little ones. There was always toast with butter and jam, though sometimes we stayed for dinner.

My mother had several sisters who lived nearby, but their brother lived several states away. It was always a special occasion when he came to visit, bringing with him his wife and two daughters. Each time he came was like a reenactment of the prodigal son returning home. Given that my grandfather was a dairy farmer, there may have been the slaughtering of the fatted calf, but I have most likely blocked those scenes from my memory. These cousins were a little older than I was but we shared so much in common that I thought of them as sisters. Being the oldest in a family of girls, it was fun to pretend to be a younger sibling. Having them come to stay was a real treat and after dinner we would “retire to the sitting room.” This was a special room behind the kitchen that was rarely ever used. The rest of the time the couches just seemed to be there with their starched pillows silently begging for someone to sit on them. Sadly it wasn’t even an option, lest you run the risk of not being allowed to run around outside with the cousins. At that age I would much rather climb a tree then sit on a prissy, doily covered couch.

But when my uncle came to town we always gathered in that room to hear of all the latest adventures. I remember sitting on the floor amongst the cousins, all eyes and ears focusing as one. In my mind he is a great storyteller, much like an explorer arriving home with tales of foreign lands, plants and spices. Before he started he would always fill his pipe with tobacco and smoke it as he went along. I remember the smell and being rich and earthy, somewhat sweet even. He spoke eloquently, of what I can’t recall, but we hung on every word.

I can’t imagine how this scene would play out today. The world has gotten smaller and people have the opportunity to stay in contact in ways that weren’t possible years ago. And ironically if I saw someone smoking a pipe, I would certainly head the other way--I would surely cough from the smoke and the speaker’s words would be lost. I guess my lungs aren’t what they used to be. Still it is the ritual of these events that I miss the most. Letter writing, filling a pipe or making the pilgrimage to a relative’s house, they all carry with them a sense of tradition. There is a certain way of carrying out that action that can only be replicated intentionally and thoughtfully, with a particular mindset and mindfulness. These memories and others from my childhood patiently sit and wait for me to notice their beauty. I occasionally take them out and share them with others. Some are polished from so much use, I touch them often like beads on a necklace. Others are almost half-forgotten, buried in the muck until something triggers their ascension to the surface. As tarnished as an old tin, they are waiting for the day I take them out and hold them to the light for everyone to see.
~b

When I was eight years old I wanted to be Ramona Quimby. Remember Ramona, from Beverly Cleary's books? Boisterous, outspoken, brave, annoying, insatiable... I've always been more like her big sister Beezus - responsible, contemplative, cautious. Ahem, boring. But I'm no fool. Ramona is where it's at. So I taped a Ramona name tag to my shirt and started begging for tin-can stilts. But our house was low on tin cans. Didn't my parents drink coffee? Didn't we recycle back then? Anyway, I found a couple of plastic tubs that worked find, except they collapsed around my eight-year-old feet and turned into a kind of leg trap that was difficult to get out of. And the noise on the pavement was tamer than it might've been with tin. But I was happy. I was just like Ramona, except my hair was long. Except that I never talked back to adults. Except that in my family there was one girl and hers had three.

The plastic tubs, before they became my tin-can stilts, held my grandfather's tobacco. He smoked a pipe - you'd never see him without a pipe. He smoked while he watched the Solid Gold dancers on the television, while he drove, while he painted at the picnic table in the backyard under the maple trees that made our world cool even while the rest of the world boiled in July heat. I can't tell you the name of the tobacco. The tubs it came in were white with black lettering. There may have been a picture of an old English cobblestone street. I used these same tubs to make paper mache pumpkins with a babysitter. Stranded bolts and nails wound up in these tubs and were forgotten on ancient windowsills in the big red barn. Grandpa's tobacco tubs ran their own highly successful breeding program and as a result we were never for want of a container. Who needs tin cans?

What I could use these tobacco tubs for now: toys, compost, pens, dog food bowls, tomato plants. Tin can stilts.
~a

Hammer

2011-06-26T22:22:00.001-04:00

Every year the fair comes to our town, just like in Charlotte's Web. There are some differences: there aren't any animals. The pickup trucks parked in the dirt are - most of them - built after 1990. But the smells, the sounds, the expression on kids' faces - these are lasting images of the fair that I don't imagine have changed much since the 1940s.

This year we were minus a boy - T spent the weekend with his grandparents, one boy alone with all that love - his birthday gift. Back in New Hampshire, two kids and two parents equals an easy outing; I'm always shocked by the difference it makes, having a one-on-one ratio. I took L to the bungy jumping trampoline thingy while M took B on the rearing motorcycles. Well, tried to take B - who was having none of it. Four rides attempted, four rides that had to be stopped so hysterical B could be plucked from the carousel horse/miniature train/motorcycle/honking car. He did make it through the fun house, though there a few tense moments in the clanging forest of metal bars and I had to carry him through the great spinning wheel. And he found the huge yellow slide to be just fine, as long as he could ride in Daddy's lap.

L had no fear and would ride even the teenagers' toys if he were tall enough. My favorite part of the fair is watching him on the bungy jumping trampoline thingy. He leaps, he does splits in the air, he somersaults forwards and backwards. Last year the power cut out partway through his turn and he was stuck up there for about 20 minutes; by the time he was released he'd drawn a crowd of spectators who clapped and cheered at his flips. My seven-year-old boy, who knows all the words to both Simple Gifts and We Will Rock You and can make surly carnival workers grin with his own joy at being high in the air. And upside down.

While L was reaching greater and greater heights a little boy ran by with hands linked to a much older brother who had a giant, plastic blown-up hammer under his arm. The hammer was stored under rickety metal steps while the two scrambled into the Tilt 'O Whirl ride. The little brother - made powerful by a superman cape hung from the back of his shirt - got to choose the best cup. His face told the world: this is the best. night. ever. The fair season is short - get a piece of errant cotton candy caught in your eye and you'll miss it. It won't be very many years until M and I can sit on a bench and send the boys on ahead to win their own giant hammers and make themselves dizzy on gravity-defying rides. I bet we'll follow along behind, though. I bet we'll make a few tries for our own goofy hammers.

Two kids are easier than three but I missed my three last night. I hoped they missed each other, too, even just a little.
~a

Twain once said “To a man with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail” I spent a few years of my life-- the ones right out of school--fumbling and flailing while trying to make sense of the world on my own. There was a time when I was too shy or maybe too defensive to let myself experience what was around me, blinded by what I thought to be true. Instead I chose to play it safe and, ever the conservative, I made my way somehow.

This past week we made the journey to the middle school gym, along with friends and family to celebrate the last day of classes with our eighth graders. Come this fall they will be attending the high school, though it seems like just yesterday they were starting kindergarten. This particular evening was a chance for us to relive memories of the past year and rejoice in friendships and all that they have learned. The principal spoke about his experience with this set of kids and he likened their time in middle school to a roller coaster; which seemed very apt given that their class trip was to an amusement park and for some it was their first experience riding on one. Once you do it’s easy to understand how slow it can be to ascend before hurriedly plummeting to the depths. It’s enough to make your head spin. True, middle school can also have that effect on some. Mr. N also talked about the tools they were given these past few years, and how these skills would serve them well as freshman. My hope for all of the graduates is to possess the ability to differentiate between those tools. To know when to use self restraint and when to indulge, to know that language has a hierarchy and when to show some control in word choice and when to let it all fly. To have the realization that there is always a choice; an advanced technology is not always necessary, a simple one can often do a better job. To quote that old scholar Albus Dumbledore: “There may come a time when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy.”

It took me a great many years to see the power tools wield both figuratively and literally. I am constantly amazed at the effect the right pan, pot, or cutting implement can have when I bake. I try to be resourceful and substitute when I don’t have when the recipe calls for, but sometimes sticking to the printed sheet in front of me gets the best results. On Monday I had the chance to see for myself the beauty of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures when I visited the MFA in Boston. In each room of the gallery there were quotes from the artist on the wall. One sentiment that really struck me was when he spoke about hitting the glass to shape it as he knew he should, but it wasn’t until he worked with the fire and flames, using them as a tool as well, that he began to create such beautiful works. Touring the
rooms I was gripped by the desire to touch everything, yet knowing one wrong move could send it all crashing to the floor. Chihuly addressed the issue of fragileness at the beginning of the exhibit when he referenced a time when he purposely threw his works into the river to test their resiliency. They surprised him by being stronger than he imagined. As my son walked across the stage to receive his diploma in the midst of his friends and classmates, I could see how these kids were stronger than we think, yet at the same time as fragile as a teacup. With every teenager there are moments of striking out with mean words, hands and fists, and the next moment wishing desperately for the comforting arms of a hug. No matter how old he gets, T will always be my child and that gives me the right to hug him whenever I please.

It’s sometimes hard for me to acknowledge how much he’s grown. At the end of the celebration I realized that the next time we are gathered together it will be for his graduation from high school. And then the whole world will be opening up to him. I can see myself helping him pack, making sure the car is chock full with bits of this and that he will need in his new life, including a hammer to hang a photograph or two on the wall. He could probably use an old shoe, but this way the nail is sure to go in straight.
~b

Next Week's Word: Tobacco

Bitter

2011-06-20T09:00:00.000-04:00

Today was a gathering to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of two dear friends. Amidst the salads, sandwiches, cheese, crackers and cans of seltzer we chatted with those we hadn’t seen in quite some time and were introduced to others we hadn’t yet met. It was a lively, festive affair, made more perfect by the beautiful weather.

As a surprise, the feted couple came out wearing their attire from that beloved day decades earlier. Though the pants were updated, the shirt, belt, dress and veil were all original and making an appearance after years of being tucked away. When the couple began to dance there was a look that passed between them, one that said “This moment is the one we’ve been working towards. How happy I am to share it with you.” And that’s true of all of us. All of the tragedies, dire health issues, moments of anger and betrayal are included in what we stand upon to gaze at the future. Reaching out to hold on to that hand when the tsunami of heartbreak hits is what makes it possible for us to go on. And every day that we last as a couple or a family is a testament to the love that we have for each other.

As the evening progressed there was bocci to be played, bubbles to be blown and extreme jungle crochet for the brave and daring in the crowd. After a bit a friend decided it was time for her to be heading home. Though the fire had yet to be lit, she insisted she wouldn’t miss it. “S’mores,” she said “are overrated.” I told her she might have to taste my s’more whoopie pies someday--with graham cookies, marshmallow icing and a pile of hot fudge hidden between. “In the south,” she said “they call them Moon Pies and I had one once.” Then she emphatically pronounced, “It was a bitter disappointment.” Fortunately the day with our friends was anything but.

Finally the three of us made our way home on the tiny dirt roads, and a feeling of summer enveloped us. We stopped for deer crossing our path and marveled at their beauty; fireflies greeted us when we
reached our driveway, as if welcoming us back. Though the afternoon couldn’t have been more perfect, I look forward to tomorrow. M and I will be celebrating 17 years since the day we met. If we can just hold each other tight enough through good times and the bad, it will be our 40th before you know it.
~b

This is not a good day to write about "bitter." The sun, it shines. The breeze, it plays with hair and keeps bugs from landing long enough to bite or sting. The garden, it reveals a tomato blossom. The grass, it gets cut. The children, oh the children - they play together for HOURS with minimal argument about which super powers are displayed by which boy. The weeds, they get whacked. The groceries, they do not get shopped for; the day is too sweet for me to travel to the store for an extended period of air conditioning. The husband, he has been mine for twelve years. My world, it is pretty damn close to perfect.

Even this is a relief: it's the last day Carly the horse needs her pills. Have you ever tried feeding pills to a smart horse? Geesh. But she ingested enough medicine over the week that her leg is no longer twice its usual size and now Molly the pony no longer needs to be tied to a tree during meal time to keep her away from Carly's tainted bucket. Molly is a hoover - no worries when she needs meds in her food, she'll eat them because they're there, no matter the bitter taste.

Life is tidal - the joy of one weekend is not likely to last the entire month. Storm clouds will return, both inside and outside. Tempers will flare. Children will resort to physical violence, mild only because of their smallish size. But for today the boys are all on the same side fighting a battle I can only catch quick glimpses of. Animals are healthy. The air is sweet.
~a

Next Week's Word: Hammer

Child

2011-06-12T19:10:00.001-04:00

My children - more than the sum of their parts. Love you, babies.

Summers when I was a child consisted of Books (obviously!), Berries, Bikes, Bugs and Board Games. We often played for pennies--uncles, aunts and cousins all vying to win the pot--but there was always ice cream. Always. It came in a huge container brought by the Schwann man. And occasionally I got to pick the flavor.

Word for next week: Bitter

Whiskey

2011-06-06T13:10:00.000-04:00

To the excited boy who stopped at my desk,

You were so enthusiastic when you asked if I wanted to hear the semaphore alphabet. Please forgive me for thinking that what you meant was somehow associated with trains. Thomas the tank engine was a favorite around our house many years ago, so this inclination and assumption was a natural one for me. But once you started saying, “Alpha, Bravo, Charlie” I suddenly remembered these words being recited by a friend when we were in college. The chance to fly a plan was somewhat of an obsession and learning to communicate this way was considered a necessity. I was also assigned the job of Listener back then. Before every test I coached and directed, which meant that afterwards I shared in the sweet victory of the (hopefully) many correct answers on the examinations. I never actually got to fly in one of those little planes, still I often think about what it must have been like to be so close to the clouds.

The next few letters you uttered came as a surprise to me, obviously they had not lodged in my brain as thoroughly as the “A, B and C” had done. As you continued, there was a look of intense concentration on your face, though I knew you had it in you to finish. When you came to “M” I chuckled, realizing it must have been an obvious choice for the person creating the alphabet, at least as far as my friends and family are concerned. “Q, R and S” presented you with a bit of a problem, or this is what I surmised when you slowed down and calmed yourself by putting your fingers behind your two front teeth. All the better to help you think.

When you got to “W” a great big smile crossed my face. I don’t think you noticed, perhaps you thought it was me cheering you on to the big finish. Once the word “Whisky” left your mouth I could only drink in that serendipitous moment. It felt warm and smooth going down, as it often does when the exact right people, time and place collide. I had been presented with a gift, as surely as if you had wrapped it up and tied it with a beautiful bow.

The last three letters seemed easy. You finished with a grand flourish and then left my desk, moving on to whatever grabbed your attention next. A few weeks ago you counted for me in Greek, this week was an entertaining alphabet, who knows what type of recitation will soon follow?

Thank you for making my Library such an interesting place to be and for showing me (again) how lucky I am to be a Children’s Librarian. Where else could I possibly have this much fun?
~b

Whiskey and I have failed to achieve any type of beautiful friendship. We're not enemies. But we have different goals. I'm a wine woman, with an occasional taste for beer; more rarely I'll have a refreshing, slightly sweet cocktail, especially if I'm on a restaurant patio with friends who share my sense of humor. Whiskey has always struck me as an indoor drink, the kind of drink you have in the winter to warm up your core, often drunk off a sticky surface in a dim bar. Whiskey reminds me of bonfires barely kept in check by scruffy men with long sticks. Whiskey makes me think of tragedy; when disaster strikes a man down, you don't revive him with a fruity sip of Chardonnay. My own meager disappointments, however, respond well to a delicate Pinot. Brave people with more to lose drink whiskey - comfortable people drink margaritas. I err on the side of comfort, or maybe willful blindness. Don't fall to the floor in a faint in my house; the dogs - greyhounds, about the quarter of the heft needed for rescue dog status - are not prepared with barrels around their necks. We may have a few drips of whiskey left in a bottle high on a back shelf, but reaching it will take desperation and step ladders. Best to laugh with us, sip with us, nibble your almost well-paired cheese and stay upright. A toast, to bull-headed well-being.
~a

Next Week's Word: Child

Religion

2011-05-31T15:32:00.000-04:00

Our town's Memorial Day parade makes a few stops along its short route: at the Veteran's Park to dedicate a wreath, at the graveyard to listen to elderly soldiers graciously mourn the boys left behind so many decades ago. And we sing the national anthem and recite the pledge of allegiance. Our parade, by the end, has swelled way beyond it's beginning numbers; townspeople walk behind the parade proper and gather people faster than polyester gathers lint.

My family fell behind after the cemetery ceremony. It was hot. One of us is three and too stubborn to be carried very far. We sat in the shade, we shared a lollipop. We found this: an oak tree growing out of an oak stump. The initial seed was probably an accident but evidence of tending could be found in the few dead daffodil stalks planted around the wispy trunk, the potting soil heaped into the rotted cavity of the old tree. I'm not a religious person (though spiritual, in a may-the-force-be-with-you kind of way) and I've never read the bible except for a few perusings in hotel rooms, but I know there's that whole rebirth theme running through it, right? And here was rebirth in such an obvious form. Stump, sapling.

“I don't want to die,” moans B at odd moments. His knowledge of death is both limited and vast. I wish I could tell him about a heaven, about meeting those we love who've died before us. I wish I could describe a grandfatherly guy dressed in silver robes who will bake us cookies and pour us milk upon our arrival. I wonder if this is why people sometimes turn to religion after having babies: an immediate set of explanations. My explanations, though, happen in terms of compost. “When we die we turn to dirt,” I tell B. “And then flowers grow out of the dirt.”

At the cemetery, B knocked on the door to a mausoleum. “Only dead people in there,” I told him, before I could consider the implications and slap a hand over my own mouth. But he took it in stride. He probably thought it was some sort of walled, doored garden, all those dead people stacked up, turning to dirt, sprouting fleshy mushrooms and pallid moonflowers.

Maybe this is our religion: everything grows, everything dies, and it's very sad but also very necessary because there isn't much room. Everything has its turn. Sometimes an oak tree grows twice.

I’m amazed at the power of sights, sounds and smells to snap you back to the past, instantly. On the stereo this week in heavy rotation is an Elizabeth Mitchell CD. Every time I hear her rendition of “Three is a Magic Number,” a song near and dear to my mommy heart, I am once again a small child in front of the TV watching Schoolhouse Rock. Yet a strange thing happens when she gets to the lines: Faith, Hope and Charity. Somehow my brain starts to supply another set of lyrics and I start singing “Where Charity and Love Prevail.” It’s as if the words to this hymn are lodged in my brain. I can sing what I imagine to be all of the verses, no hymnal required.

Smells too seem to have a transporting effect. If I close my eyes in the presence of lilies, I am seated in my church where I sang in the choir, had my communion and confirmation, and kneeled next to my grandmother for almost every Sunday as a young girl. These memories come to me when I least expect them.

Then there are the moments that bring the Here and Now sharply into focus. There are those serendipitous moments when I stumble onto a quote or phrase that puts my life into perspective, all in just a few simple words. Following some photography links to different websites this week I found this quote by the Dalai Lama: ‘My religion is very simple, my religion is kindness.’ Reading those words I drew in my breath, because this truly summed up how I try to live my life. I want to be kind thoughtful and caring, putting other people’s needs before my own. It’s this last bit, though, that often gets me into trouble. When will I learn that too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing anymore. After thinking so much about others-- rearranging my schedule for an unforeseen run to the airport or a last-minute bake sale--I often get depleted, my resources spent and I spiral downwards.

The lesson I’m trying to teach myself, though there are no textbooks, rules or guidelines for this—just like everything in life it seems—is that being open to receiving kindness is just as important as giving. These past few weeks have been particularly challenging as I summon up the courage to see myself as I truly am at this particular age. Yet I have been on the receiving end of so much kindness: An unexpected invitation to a choral concert, seats saved at an evening event, a handwritten letter arriving in the mail just when you need it most, friends making time in their busy schedules to see a movie together, delicious food made for a holiday picnic, thoughtful presents given out of love rather than duty or obligation, a husband doing lawn work after a long hot day so as not to break a promise, time spent in companionable silence on a deck by the lake. I’m trying to give and to be open to receive. It’s not easy. Yet nothing worth having ever is.
~b

Next Week's Word: Whiskey

Long

2011-05-23T10:08:00.001-04:00

Both T (the Boy) and L (our kitty) went to their yearly wellness check this week. The doctor couldn’t get over how tall T had grown. The vet remarked, quite enthusiastically, how long L was. Giving it some thought, I was surprised to find that these two share so many other similarities. In appearance, both are lithe with gangly limbs. Seeing them in the morning makes me feel as if they are made of taffy, having been stretched overnight. Someday all too soon they will fill out and take on a more grown up persona. At least we think so. This is what we tell ourselves as we are going through those growing pains of having two young adults in the house at the same time.

I find that they are alike in demeanor as well. Both love to sit on their perch in the loft bed and take naps. If you’re looking for one or the other, they are probably sitting on the chair in front of the computer, though not at the same time. Both hate to see a closed door or a conversation that excludes them. Each take the stairs two at a time. Due to extreme hunger, one races to the bathroom if he thinks someone is headed that way in the hopes of being fed (kitty); the other (boy) is more self sufficient when it comes to food. But his searches through the fridge seem constant, and he doesn’t always leave items in the fridge for his parents to eat. Most days there are often cries from each of them when in front of a “screen” for entertainment. The kitty calls out for someone to look out the window with him at Chipmunk TV, though sometimes he watches the Bird Channel upstairs. T frequently yells out in the hopes someone will come to check out his video game progress. We try to appease each by showing an interest. Sometimes.

Neither sits still for very long, and if I try to “smother” them with affection there is a look of “Oh I wish you wouldn’t” on their faces. Now that they are teenagers, they make me pine and long for the days when they wanted me to sit and hold them endlessly. Alas, those days are long gone. But occasionally, very briefly, there is a sweet, shared moment between us.
~b

A long week of rain has made for a long lawn. Chuck a gardening glove off the porch and you'll lose it in the jungle that is our yard. I managed to plant grass seed in the horse paddock the day the downpour started (seven? eight? days ago) and I expect as soon as the sun manages to break through the cloud cover those seeds are going to develop attitude. And altitude.

"Can I use the lawn mower?" T asked the other day. "Can I mow the back yard?" I'm tempted to say sure and show him where we keep the gas, but a whisper of parental doubt slaps a hand over my mouth. "Let me talk to Dad," I answer. I picture gory toes, bloody stumps where his thin tapered fingers were supposed to grow. "I'm old enough now," he points out. And he is. How did my first baby get so grown up? So confident and smart, so good looking and long?

He invites an equal measure of girls and boys to his birthday party. They dance in the rain on our unruly lawn, not caring about hair plastered to foreheads and drenched clothes, just kids with nothing to hide from each other yet. Long legs darting among the tulips. I want them all to stay in the right now, rain and all. But they slip away with their goody bags and their sugar highs. My boys fall asleep early, tempers barely in check. T stretches out on his bottom bunk, new Legos populating his pillow. "Rub backings?" he asks. Of course. I lay down beside him, careful not to upset the various primary colored towers, and rub his back. His long, straight back.
~a

Stove

2011-05-16T10:25:00.000-04:00

Today is: rain, clean laundry in four piles, planting potatoes and getting very wet, chipping away at a mound of work, three cups of Constant Comment in a row, matching coffee cups (after much discussion), checkers on the kitchen floor, a couch pulled away from the wall for an army base; little-boy faces begging for leftover birthday candy; spreading grass seed on the paddock at 6 am; wearing a comfortable shirt to yoga class; deciding to keep Molly forever; having no schedule besides an early bedtime; pasta boiling on the stove.

Today is: good.
~a

A few months ago, in response to a part of the book, “Little Princes” that I really loved and insisted that she read, my friend started waxing enthusiastically about her camping stove. In the book, Connor Grennan writes about a time at the orphanage in Nepal when he would bring home toy cars for the boys to play with. As much as they loved them, the cars were always smashed by the end of the weekend. The store-bought toys did, however, inspire the boys to make their own cars out of lids and soda bottles. They discovered that varying the water you put inside made them move differently. As an added bonus, because the boys built them, they could also repair them. What my friend admired most about her stove, she said, was that she could take everything apart. All the bits and pieces, as tiny as they might be, could be cleaned, repaired and replaced. And so, because I was interested, she brought it all to the Library so that I could see it for myself.

We sat in the backyard and she laid out all of the pieces while she told me how it worked. She described the whole process and how it changed the liquid into a gaseous state. Listening to her talk I suddenly wished that I had the power to transform from one to state to another that easily. While we chatted she decided to clean some of the pieces. It was so much easier to do, she said without kids clamoring around wondering when it was going to be time to boil the water for the pasta. After a long day of hiking it’s easy to see why the kids would be so focused on food. I find that food away from home tastes so much different than what you normally eat. I can only imagine that a meal cooked on a tiny stove made from ingredients you’ve carried in your pack as you made your way up hills and down into valleys must be oh so satisfying.

We talked more about the simplistic design of this type of technology. From there our conversation moved from stoves to wheelchairs her brother has helped to design for people in need to helping other countries. Even though it was still bright daylight I felt as if we were seated at a campfire in the evening on a warm summer night. The stove, though in pieces, was our center round which the conversation whirled and swirled. There was the warm glow of friendship as our voices became light as a gas, first wrapping round me and then lifting up into the sky.
~b

Head

2011-05-09T11:13:00.000-04:00

Head, shoulders, knees and toes… so goes the song I remember from childhood and often sing on Wednesday mornings, much to the delight of the toddlers at my Library storytime. They know those body parts and are happy to point to them, as fast-paced as I make the tune. Looking back to those days of my own youth, it seemed so easy then: a name and function for each part of me, no debates or disputes. Then I got older and started to realize that it’s what’s inside that counts, the stuff you can’t really point to that actually matters.

For awhile I thought that it was brains that mattered most. I was considered an egghead in school. I was class president, always had perfect attendance. I graduated second in my class with several scholarships to an all women’s college. In high school I was driven, and didn’t date much. (Boys don’t make passes at girls…)

College meant being on my own and learning to balance my head and my heart. This was something new to me. Before I woke up everyday, went to school, came home and did my homework. Now I only had myself to answer to and sometimes I found that going to the park on a beautiful sunny day rather than going to class was actually the better choice. Yet if I had it to do over again rather than pursuing my academic studies, I would definitely take more art classes. It’s not that I don’t appreciate all of the knowledge that I gained back then, but I can see with the clarity of hindsight that concentrating in one area (putting all my eggs in one basket so to speak) didn’t actually prepare me for this life I’m living now. I love to write, take pictures, knit and bake. If I had experimented with the arts back then, maybe I would have enjoyed myself more. Not that I can change things for me, but I do try to stress some of this with the teenager in my house who seems destined to follow along a similar high school path.

The question of which one to listen to--head or heart--often arises for me, but there’s no debating the fact that they are both necessary. In “The Wizard of Oz” the scarecrow asks for a Brain and the tinman a Heart, I feel like I have both of those in abundance. But at this stage in my life I might have to side with the lion and ask that all-mighty all-knowing wizard for some Courage. I wish for the ability to be brave enough to be more selfish, to pursue my own interests. I work in a service industry where I help people find information. Often times I feel as if this is what I was born to do. Though helping people can get be a bit wearying at times and when I least expect them the meltdowns occur.

I hacked off my hair in a fit last night. Looking in the mirror I’m hoping to find Courage to live with it. So what if I can’t put it up in a clip, pigtails are much more my style anyway. And in some ways my head feels lighter, as do the cabinets and drawers I have purged and reorganized this weekend. I’d like to discover the Courage to move on into a new personal decade, leave some baggage behind. But as my body grows older and changes occur I wonder if I will ever sing “Head and Shoulders” with my own little one again? My head knows it will be okay, but my heart isn’t so sure yet.
~b

Last week I forgot to pack L a sandwich to eat for dinner on his way from karate to baseball. I also forgot his baseball mitt. And I forgot that England is five hours ahead of us, not five hours behind. Which caused a significant upheaval to the interview I had scheduled at a certain time. On Saturday I forgot to add string cheese and yogurt-in-small-plastic-bags to the grocery list depended upon by M and his mother; the boys will not be pleased when they open their lunch bags at school today. Yesterday there was a certain word I couldn't remember, a perfect word, no other word would do. I would tell you what it was but I never managed to come up with it and now I can't even remember what I needed it for.

When my grandmother was first slipping into the warm sea of dementia we laughed at the treasures we found wrapped in tissue and tucked in drawers. Photographs, pens, stones, orange peels got the same treatment as jewelry and coins. She'd worry us and amuse us with stories of bearded strangers storming into her house and demanding tea. Most of her sentences remained unfinished after her death over a dozen years ago, thoughts forgotten midway through, left to fend for themselves among the misfiring synapses of her addled brain.

When I am addled, I do not laugh. I get angry, and I worry. I worry about that same fate falling to my own head. The loss, the absence, the vacant opthalmological windows. Of course it's more likely that my calendar is the culprit, the reason behind my forgetfulness. May is...busy. All the other months are training - May is the marathon. Soon will come June - picnics, playgrounds, hot dogs on the grill, the fair, open windows - we just have to get through May. And then, hopefully, my head will recover, relax, release, and rejoice. Until then, dear reader, be kind and lower your expectations. My head, it is doing its best.
~a

Ocean

2011-05-02T11:45:00.000-04:00

My boys are going to the beach today. M took all three of them to visit grandparents in the ocean town I grew up in and even though it's still spring-chilly out there, they will go and dig in the sand, skip pebbles on the surf and clink rocks into their pockets for me to find next time I wash their clothes.

From the second floor of the house I lived in as a child you could see the ocean. It was far away but it was blue. And hazy, even on clear days. From the third floor there was more of it and I imagine the roof offered an even grander view, but there are limits. I haven't been in that house since I was eighteen; maybe global warming has brought it even closer, I don't know.

I miss the ocean. When you turn your gaze toward endless it does something beneficial to your brain. It's like sleep, only with an awake level of awareness. Growing up I took the beach for granted; I could walk there from my best friend's house and we spent hours every summer coated in sand. Now going to the beach is an event and has to be planned, prepared for, talked about, and then there is the inevitable disappointment - someone gets sand in their eyes, someone else has their snack stolen by a daring seagull. It's not like the lazy, floaty days I remember from when I was a kid. Nothing ever is, is it?

Ocean rocks lie all over our house: on the windowsill above the kitchen sink; lining the porch railing, on the hearth in the living room. They have no use but to hold the house down and remind us of the beach, that there are things much, much huger than ourselves moving in the world, that something as malleable as water can smooth over, break down something as hard as rock.

I miss my men when I'm alone in the house, and the missing feels so good. I can eat when I want, drink a glass of wine in the afternoon, stay up late writing in bed. I can move freely out the door to run to the lake without a trail of questions ("Where are you going? Can I come?") following me down the driveway. But when I know they are on their way home to me, that's even sweeter. Here they come, bearing their hugs and sticky kisses, pebbles from the sea presented to me like the jewels they are.
~a

I often wonder why the water has such a pull over me. Today in an attempt to find the perfect shot, M and I went to the river. We each walked around in companionable silence with our cameras trying to capture the scene in front of us. As I gazed into the current I was mesmerized; the movement pulling me along, my focus on the everchanging patterns of the waves. I could have spent the whole day there, content to have the sun shining down upon us. Spring is finally here, the one that we have earned a thousand times over. The snow has only recently left us, in fact much of the water down below is from the recent thaw. As it makes its way to the sea, I wonder if I could just jump in and float to that same destination. I don’t presume to think it could be as easy as that. I have been trying for years to move closer to some body of water, pond, lake, river (I’m not that particular) but each time, it seems, my plans are thwarted. Twice we have looked at houses that have a view of the river, but both of those deals fell through, for one reason or another. Two years ago I was offered a job in Maine. I would have had a view of the ocean from my office, but it was not to be. I don’t see how I could have worked there. I would have wanted those I love nearest and dearest to uproot and move with us--which would not have been possible. So here we stay.

Last week one of the women who comes with her toddler to my storytime stopped in to pick up some new books and to deliver her sad news in person. She told me her little family would be leaving the area shortly. As she talked about the reasons to be going back to where they originally lived, being near the grandparents was high on the list. But when she talked about being near the ocean again, I could see in her eyes how desperately she needed to have that wish come true.

In some ways the ocean and I have a long distance love affair. I count the minutes until we can be together again, I get a little giddy when I start to anticipate a trip to the beach, I replay my favorite parts of our time together over and over again in my head, and when I have to leave to come back home I almost can’t tear myself away. I often threaten to live on the beach. I adamantly tell my family they can go home without me. I imagine making a fort or shelter under the life guard’s chair from whatever scraps are at hand. My address under the chair would sound a bit Harry Potterish and my hair would constantly be whipping in the wind. My skin would probably take on a too-pink tinge, and I don’t know that the sand would ever leave my shoes, but I think I would be happy. At least I’d like to give it a try.
~b

Word for next week: Head

Priest

2011-04-25T13:47:00.000-04:00

Walking around this morning, I found yesterday's snow was mostly gone and the air was filled with promise and possibilities. Instead of eggs I seemed to be on a flower hunt, discovering snowdrops and crocuses that had pushed their way through last Fall's leaves. Many of the daffodils were making appearances, and the buds were finally beginning to show. The lilac leaves are starting to appear as are the ones on the rosebush. With the sun shining it was easy to remember the Easters of my childhood--there were new dresses, ribboned hats and always the traditional photo moment as the three sisters posed in front of the tree at my grandmother’s house. There was most certainly a feast to be eaten after church on that holiday. I seem to remember fried chicken, potato salad, and several varieties of pies being on the menu. We all gathered in our finery, happy that Spring was finally upon us.

The weeks leading up to Easter were a solemn time filled with solitude and introspection. Not only did we have to give something up for Lent that we truly could not do without, we were expected to attend church every Friday evening for the Stations of the Cross. During that time the priest and the altar boys would stop at each picture that adorned the church walls. The priest read passages and in the pews we would kneel and respond. As a teen I had no desire to spend my Friday evenings reciting scripture verses when all of my friends were out and about; but some of my friends were the altar boys who accompanied the priest around to each station. Often I would catch the eye of one of my friends and we would exchange a knowing look, wondering how we ever managed to be inside reciting when the rest of the world was wild and free.

Those evenings the priest would have certain robes to wear; but on Easter Sunday, after so many weeks of sacrifice, his attire was resplendent. The way I remember him best though is not dressed in robes, but rather in a black short sleeved shirt, black pants and a clerical collar. And though he lived in the rectory next to the church and I would often see him around our small town, how I think of him now is at the roller skating rink. Several times a year our catechism class would have an outing to a rink in a nearby town. Our priest had the merriest time on his skates going round and round without a care in the world, or so it seemed. In some ways it was very out of the ordinary to see him there, as many of the kids here are shocked to find that I do indeed go to the grocery store and I do not live at the library. Yet I think it showed me at an early age that you can do what you love no matter your constraints. By working within those boundaries, and upholding your commitments there is still some time to (rock and) roll along to the tunes.

T woke to a basket of candy this morning , including a chocolate bunny with tremendously long ears. As he opened up the Laffy Taffy he started reading us some of the jokes on the wrapper. If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine a younger son immensely pleased with the finds from his Easter hunt instead of the teenager in front of me. I reached for a taffy, wanting to taste the days of my own roller skating youth. Back then it was my absolute favorite candy to buy at the snack bar, strawberry, grape and watermelon. I used the money my grandmother gave me to buy one long piece and then saved the rest of the coins to fund some fantasy or another. But before I opened a piece today, I stopped myself, for that was then and this is now. I knew my teeth wouldn’t appreciate the stickiness. So I reached for a peep instead. And then quite possibly, another.
~b

I've been to New Orleans twice. Once for New Year's Eve with an old boyfriend (it rained) and once with M to his uncle's wedding. We'd only been dating for a few months and were still in the early stages of infatuation, and while it was thrilling to meet his extended family, it was also excruciating. I'm shy, and thirteen years ago I was even more shy. Enough to render me mute in the face of decent people. But smiling graciously comes pretty easily, so I did that whenever I couldn't speak, and it all went just fine. It was a Catholic wedding, my first ever. It was long and lovely with an abiding sense of formality, and M's family was so warm that I, with my lingering nontheism, never felt too much out of place, even when the strangers next to me gave me hugs and shook my hand and told me how glad they were for my very existence.

"The priest is a good lesson for me," M commented once, during the reception. The priest was not very old but had to have an oxygen tank on a leash wherever he went. M was in the process of trying to quit his smoking habit. Which he'd had for twenty or so years. But fear of lung cancer didn't work. A new girlfriend (me) didn't work. Later, a new baby didn't work and then another new baby didn't do the trick either. The habit stuck, not for lack of effort on M's part to shake himself of it.

What did work was the sight of his little boys sucking on twigs and leaning against the car, one hand tucked into a front pocket in that classic smoker's pose. Nothing warned M of the effect of his actions on his boys like seeing influence in real time. After that it was easy. Well, he made it look easy. He threw away his last pack, circled the date on the kitchen calendar and sighed. Turns out that quitting a lethal habit can really become just another mundane task we perform for the sake of our children. Like changing bed sheets, filling out school emergency forms, grilling hamburgers to the right shade of pink. The boys still pretend to smoke, especially in winter chill when their breath produces real puffs of white. But they do it to get a rise out of us, to get the lecture they know is coming. They are not boys trying to be like dad through pursed lips and lightly clutched twigs.
~a

Hungry

2011-04-18T14:32:00.000-04:00

It takes several hours of preparation to leave our farmette overnight. There's the packing, the securing of animal caretakers, the writing of the notes, the arranging of the supplies for easy access and understanding. Yesterday we left behind 99 mouths to be fed in our absence; about 80 of these mouths open no wider than half an inch, but still. That's a lot of hunger.

We went to Lexington to witness the first battle of the Revolutionary War. We rarely travel far as a complete family unit, and we very rarely stay in hotels. It's hard to spend three hours in a car with so many varying tastes in music, jokes, leg positioning and noise level. It's hard to navigate three smallish children through an unknown town, a town with a population nine times that of our rural hamlet. Last night, while waiting for the take-out order to be ready, M and I had to drink in shifts at the bar since they didn't allow kids that close to the alcohol. My margarita moment was lovely, a sweet break from constant questions and immediate decisions. I wrote a few aimless paragraphs on a receipt; I watched sportscasters talk to each other on the big TV above the bar. I sipped frothy sweet alcohol and had to resist the urge to pack the tainted ice cubes away in my purse for later. Then we all ate Mexican food in our room in front of the TV (this is, after all, a vacation) and went to bed at the same time. I didn't sleep much and now my whole body is hungry for a nap.

This morning - early, early - we made the trek to Battle Park, with a stop at Starbucks for necessary caffeine. We marched in regiments with other parents carrying children in footed pajamas. Lots of them also carried buckets and ladders and we discovered why when we got to the park and found the audience about ten feet deep around the perimeter. A kind man with two boys of his own offered my guys a spot on his ladder bench and the battle began with drums and guns and shouts and colonists running and scattered. "Is that man broken?" asked B. "Is he broken? Will he get up?" I tried to explain that it was pretend, he had only pretended to die, but two year olds don't always get the subtlety of living history. "Is that man broken?" I sipped my cooling caramel macchiato and kissed his forehead in answer.

I'm not one for blatant emotion, but watching the redcoats and the minutemen mix it up on the lawn while the wives huddled in a far corner and used their aprons as flimsy shields against the sight of slaughter, it was hard not to well up. These were people so hungry for a new and free identity that they were willing to die on a patch of chilled mud on an April morning. I understand that the road to a democratic nation was a complicated one with many variables, but these men we honor with reenactment every year - there was nothing vain about their sacrifice. I appreciate that my boys get to see that.

Back at the hotel we had our own little skirmish during breakfast. We were hungry, we were tired. But we survived. Unbroken. And returned home to feed those waiting mouths, to settle back into our routines we take for granted with such comfortable disregard for the history that allows our lifestyle. Until next year when we may again bear a kind of witness. Next year, though, we'll eat breakfast before the war.
~a

The scene that sticks with me the most from “In the Language of Love” happens on page two when Joanna is reminiscing about a happier time, when she was a little girl and would pull the cookbooks out from under her bed and make up stories from them. No one ever questioned the rationale behind the cookbooks being stored in a drawer under the daughter's bed. So it is at our house, often times items items grow roots and stay in a certain location irregardless of logic. It is our wrapping paper resides under the bed, in an IKEA box that used to contain the parts of our dresser. Somehow it just works and we always know where to find it when needed.

A few weeks ago we spent a Sunday organizing our books. After a bit of shuffling, all of our cookbooks and food magazines were able to be together on one set of shelves. Less hunting for the book means more time for locating specific recipes. After many years some of them are so beloved the magazine just automatically falls open to the right page. Last night when I couldn't sleep, I decided to come downstairs and find M's favorite bread book in anticipation of making challah today. The book is almost falling apart and when I turned to that page there were stains and marks all over it. And it was like I could suddenly feel him next to me. If it is true that you leave a part of yourself in every book you read, a battered (either covered in, or bruised-- take your pick of definitions they work equally as well here and spattered cookbook will conjure images, tastes and smells faster than any other.

Watching M work with the dough today, braiding the bits into a beautiful loaf; I was in awe. (In fact one of the reasons I married him is because he owned a waffle maker and juicer, two non-essential kitchen items. Or so it has been said.) He cooks for us most every night and tries to be cheerful and appease us when the dreaded phrase “I'm hungry” is uttered, (often at a late or terrifically early hour.) He provides for us in so many ways, and his meals are always nourishing. Some of those recipes I find in the magazines that arrive in our post office box each month like magic. The books, too, with their beautiful photographs and tantalizing recipes are a constant source of inspiration. A current favorite is Heidi Swanson's “Super Natural Cooking.” I visit her blog often and reading the stories behind the recipes makes me feel connected to something larger. I feel the same about Molly Wizenberg. Reading her magazine articles, her cookbook and Orangette blog, is like connecting with a friend. I realize that I've never met these women, but I feel a commonality with them: what we cook, why we cook and what we use. I love that they choose to use accessories and baking dishes that have a history, passed down through the family or found at flea markets and second-hand stores. That the past is valued over some bright and shiny new pan you simply must rush out and by.

Reading these two women satisfies something in me, a hunger I didn't know I had. In some ways they are feeding us with something more than food. It's their stories and personal experiences that elevate their offerings from a mere collection of recipes. Every time I find a new cake/cookie/pastry recipe that appeals to me, I instantly think of who I want to make it for. That's what cooking means to me, taking all of the ingredients and mixing them up in a way that the outcome can be given to someone. It's what M does for us when he cooks, it's what I do when I bake. Pulling out the ingredients and following the recipe calms and soothes me. It's a task that I can see through to the end, unlike so many of my other projects for work. And best of all: you can eat the results.

These blogs have been inspirational in other ways. I'm hoping to grow more of our own herbs and vegetables this year. The few potatoes we produced last year, as well as the mint, the rhubarb, and the chives made me happy beyond measure. I am ready to get started, my fingers are itching to mess about in the dirt. It's an ache, a need, a hunger to be satisfied. Now if only the weather would cooperate.
~b

Blue

2011-04-11T06:54:00.003-04:00

My day off this week was truly just that. M took the car to work and though I could have driven him and had a sense of four-wheeled freedom, I chose to stay home. The fog outside was intense and close around the house drawing me inside myself. I found that after months of writing, research, deadlines and computer screens I rather enjoyed this solitude. Looking out the window I was reminded of the day several years ago I spent in Venice. My friend and I crossed bridges and walked over cobblestones in search of an artist who made tiny exquisite bugs out of glass. I also spent much of the day soaking up the atmosphere and visiting shops looking for a glass ring. I had been overcome with a desire to bring one home, and after much debate about color choice, I finally settled on cobalt blue. It had reminded me of a vase I once owned (coincidentally quite like the vase A featured in her very first blog entry.)

Looking though the jewelry box I find the ring where I knew it to be. Sadly it doesn't get much use for fear of breaking the glass. Putting Miles Davis on the stereo I let the notes of the soulful saxophone wrap round me as I get out my camera and photograph the scene. Sensing something is missing I have a mini epiphany. In a Venice state of mind I race upstairs to find the blue marble paper amidst my collection under my bed. I didn't get this particular paper in Italy, it was from the time 5 years ago when our little family had driven to the funeral of M's dad. On the way back home we visited one of the places where we used to live in Michigan and found this paper in one of my favorite stores. I haven't used it yet, no project has been worthy enough it seems. Yet laying it down under the other items I notice how the blue serves as a basis for the other colors, making them sparkle and shine.

After the CD ends I pop in something else and in a world of strange coincidences I see that the name of this CD is “The Blue Horse.” As the Be Good Tanyas start to sing I am instantly transported back to school when a group of lovely young women stood on a stage to sing about birds and not being too blue to fly. I wonder where they are now and if they too think about that evening with as much reverence as I do. Though I am reminiscing today, living in my own head and visiting the past, I realize that am not too blue to fly. I dance and move around to the music. Reveling in the joy that comes from movement and feeling almost effervescent at the thought of those looming deadlines that are now behind me. As the lyrics remind me, they are only in the past...

Looking out I see that the fog has dissipated and there are now drops of water on the window, blurring my view. The Tanyas are singing about rain and snow, which seems very apt for the world outside today. I wonder about the sun, and for a moment miss its place in the sky. Perhaps it too is taking a well deserved rest. I close my eyes and see azure, cyan, and cobalt. They conjure up vivid memories, like displacing the heat of the afternoon with a popsicle that stains your tongue and amazes your friends. Every time. Nothing about that image evokes sadness. There are many kinds of blue.
~b

All last week I had the blues. Not because of my birthday, which was Friday and splendid in a quiet way. My blues was weather related and shared by much of northern New England, where it is still winter and has been for about three years. Last week was mostly gray skies, rain, and the added bonus of occasional snow. Last week dinners were uninspired, mornings were extra rushed, daytimes were marked by gusty sighs of certainty that the sun will never again warm the ground enough to promote green grass. Status updates on Facebook - which last week I checked way too often - were a chorus of meteorological despair. Generally I tend toward the cheerful and find myself lost in the face of the blues - I make a lot of lists and watch too much T.V. I drink more coffee than can really be healthy. I grit my teeth and remind myself, sometimes out loud, that everything changes.

The end of the week was marked by sun, but that's not what blew the blues away. The boys and I had planted two trays of seeds on the last snow day (which was what, a week ago?). We keep them in L's room where the sun is most likely to bless the window; he checks them every morning. Friday after breakfast he sent out a rousing call and the family gathered to see the new green shoots making their instinctive way toward the lamp we'd provided in place of the sun. Standing in various stages of dress we cheered, we marveled. We were almost late for the bus. And that day was sunny, a sweet birthday gift.
~a

Swift

2011-04-03T17:48:00.004-04:00

Yoga - there's nothing swift about it. Yoga is about slowing down and breaking pieces into pieces and more pieces, about gathering those pieces back up and molding them into something a teensy bit more bendy than the original form. Take backbends. When I was twelve, I spent most of the day in a backbend. Or upside down. Check out our family photos from that time of my life - I'm the one showing off her underwear. Now that I am Grown Up, upside down is called an inversion and backbends take an hour and a half to accomplish. And even then, it's not exactly an accomplishment because it's yoga. Instead it's another step on the journey towards... well, I don't even know. I think I'm not supposed to know. I think yoga is about the unknowing, the trusting, the foggy future, the present moment. I'm not complaining. I love yoga. I LOVE yoga. My once-a-week yoga class is almost as sacred as my morning coffee. I've yet to bleed much yoga into my daily life, only because of the danger: bend down, bend over, bend back, and inevitably a child will leap onto your resulting apex and that. hurts. So every Sunday, well, most Sundays, I leave the men lapping up their weekend allotment of television and head to the yoga studio where for a short time I am able to think of nothing. When thoughts burst through my Wall of Focus I delightedly smoosh them with my laser gaze. Nobody begs me for an extra ration of cinnamon graham crackers, nobody needs my help in the bathroom. And that's true nirvana.

Yoga may not be swift but my six year old is. "I did backbends in yoga today," I tell him. "Can I do one?" he answers. "Try." And he does. He lays down, plants his feet, his hands, and like swift helium rises up toward the sky. Sigh. "Namaste," I say to him. And we head out for a walk in the shock of springtime air. He flies away on his bike.
~a

M and I have been sharing a car ever since the event that we have now named Almost Running into a Snowplow: Choosing to Drive into a Snowbank Instead. Tuesday morning we were out running “before work” errands when I spotted a pheasant out of the corner of my eye. He was standing proud against a backdrop of pines and practically asking, begging to be photographed. At my insistence M quickly swung the car around, using all four wheels, though it almost felt like a two- wheeled maneuver. He brought me back around to where I had seen the bird. I grabbed my camera and stealthily headed out to capture his image. The bird was having none of it. I followed him as he walked, then ran at a road runner like place. Finally he used his wings to go a short distance. I crept along hoping get close enough for a shot. In the end I chased him all the way around the office complex. I tried to remain focused, shooing the image of office workers gravitating in droves to the windows to see the crazy lady stalking a pheasant with her camera. I lost my friend the pheasant in the tall grass and finally admitted defeat before heading back to the car. I hopped in and admitted to getting at least one photo which would be perfect for this week’s word. M chimed in with his guess of what it might be: Late for Work, (though he admitted that was three words, so probably not… )

Swift is not a word I have given much thought to in recent memory, given my study of slow media I seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Yet everywhere I went this week, there it was. Funny how you completely pass something by until you actually start to seek it out. Parked in the lot at the general store a truck pulled up next to us. It was covered in mud, as will be the fate of many cars in the coming weeks. I could barely make out the letters of the business name painted on the side, but peering closer I saw: S-W-I-F-T. I made a presentation on Wednesday regarding the topic of Early Literacy and was treated at the end to listen to a bit of the weekly read-aloud. The book was “Trumpet of the Swan” and they had just reached the part where the babies are learning how to fly. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine their father describing the process. The little cygnets were assured that it would be swift, for how else would swans fly?

Thinking about this collection of words recently, I have come to realize that capturing these images each week is my way of making these day-to-day experiences tangible. It’s proof that I lived, breathed, laughed and loved during the past year. To me it says these fleeting days, months, seasons matter. They are what make up a life. If anything I have learned that time is constantly moving and slows for no one, even when we try to stop it and live extra in a certain moment. As Jane Austen’s Isabella says in “Emma,” ‘She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly.’
~b

Cottage

2011-03-25T17:33:00.009-04:00

Every year the three of us look forward to our October vacation. Our destination is never a question; nothing to ponder, consider or mull over. We always head to the beach. (In the winter I think our blood somehow begins to crave a certain synchronicity with the waves.) Over the years we have stayed in a variety of places, some small hotels and a few cozy cottages. I have often wondered what it would be like to take the very best parts of each and create something new. The rooftop patio of one, the loft another, the beautiful surroundings of a third, the shutters and windowboxes of yet another, and lastly, the proximity to the beach from an especially lovely house. If I could, I would take all the pieces and, like the LEGOs that I still find strewn and scattered about the rooms here, build a respite where we could retreat in complete comfort. Often.

What would we keep in our house by the sea? Books and bicycles, picnic baskets and tea. Everything would have a use and a place where we could find it. Nooks and crannies filled with everything one would need for a day at the beach. Though having your own seaside spot does take away from the charm of a borrowed cottage. Vacationing in someone else’s home offers the chance to poke about and explore; treasures to be found, unfamiliar bookshelves to be browsed. A climbing of the stairs to the great unknown, pushing open the door to discover what lies beyond.

Either way, a house of my own, a few rooms borrowed for the weekend, or even a shelter of sticks and tarp--as long as the sea is nearby, then it’s absolutely perfect.
~b

You are all invited to a housewarming party at my cottage on the beach. I don't know which beach yet. But there will be porches with rocking chairs, benches in herb gardens, a volleyball net for those of you who feel the need to express yourself physically, a fire pit for roasting marshmallows and small children, and a bar. And a Great Room with lots of speakers and bookshelves, with a hardwood floor on which we are going to dance to old Billy Joel and maybe some bluegrass. I'll make appetizers, most of them with fresh ginger, crab meat and watercress, and my mom will make quiche, and M will pass out headlamps for people who want to go skinny dipping after dark. You'll need the headlamps in order not to walk into one of the rose bushes lining the sand path to the private beach. And to navigate the leaning wooden stairs that traverse the delicate dune. Once you've finished with your swim - all dripping and giggly and slightly bashful but mostly proud that you were naked! in the water! with other people nearby! at your age! - come back to the cottage and we'll sip cinnamon coffee and tell stories about relatives who are now dead and so won't get mad. It will be a night of luminous fun. The kind of night we'll try to recreate a year later, but it will rain, and someone will have forgotten the recipe for sangria, and no one will even suggest skinny dipping, and the ginger will be powered instead of fresh. But the first party, that one - be sure to come. I will let you know as soon as I've found a cottage on the beach that I can afford. It might be a few (dozen) years, but I'll send an invite. Bring a friend. Children welcome.
~a

Bath

2011-03-21T08:26:00.006-04:00

The moments I will miss the most when my babies are grown are the moments that right now inspire the most exasperation.

Like grocery shopping. These days it's a headache - three asky boys hanging off the cart at various angles, me trying to navigate cramped aisles, focus on my list, and avoid running over other children, all while fielding a barrage of questions: "No, we may not get three different kinds of ice cream and no, we are not going to get a bunch of balloons, and really do you think I'm going to say yes to Coke?”

And bedtimes. I love snuggling in the big bed and reading stories and listening while their breathing slowly dials down to low, but not every. single. night. Sometimes I want to drink a second (or third) glass of wine and watch chirpy British crime shows.

And tubbies. How many tubbies have I expedited over the past nine years? Washing boys' heads can be exhausting if you do it night after night after night. But I know that someday I'll be brushing my teeth or washing my hands at that usual time in the evening when the sky outside turns pink and I'll miss the splashing, the gleaming little bodies, the sense of everyone safe in the house. This picture of B is already ancient - he was a baby then. Already he is a huge boy with opinions on bath toys and water temperature. Already my children need me less and this is both liberating and terrifying, like I'm losing my usual excuse for lack of success in other areas. Like gainful employment. But for now I bring my wine and a book and settle on the bathmat while B plays pirate, submarine, fireman, and sharks vs. fish. When he splashes, I scowl. And then we laugh together and he splashes some more.
~a

This week I had one of those days that felt like forever. I was at the Library from sun up till way past sun down (or so it seemed). All throughout the day people kept coming in and remarking on the weather, they just couldn’t get over how warm it was. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to step outside until darkness had already fallen. When I got home I remembered that the moon was going to be very large and beautiful that evening. I got out my camera and waited. It seemed like the clouds kept getting in the way, or my hands kept shaking, or cars were whizzing by without fully understanding how close they were to me. After awhile I went inside, surprised at how the cold had given me an extra surge of energy, an unexpected gift. Putting my camera away and returning my bags of knitting and books to their rightful place, I felt all of my enthusiasm drain away. I decided that a bath would be the perfect remedy to the situation.

As the tub filled and I began to anticipate the warmth of the water washing over me, I noticed this other moon smiling down at me. This is the image that adorns the package of tub tea given to me years ago by a very dear friend. The original contents are long gone, but the smile remains; presiding over the towels, soap and assorted bathroom accessories. I often receive special soaps, bath bubbles and beads as stocking stuffers and presents for Christmas. Truth be told I often give these gifts as well, wishing others a quiet moment free from stress and other family demands. Somehow Christmas itself is always full of pressure and stress and the need to do more, more, more. Amidst all of the chaos I try to step outside it all and watch some of my favorite films, made all the more special because we only watch them once a year. Conjuring up images from “It’s A Wonderful Life,” I am reminded of the scene in which George and Mary, walking home from an impromptu bath in the pool at the school, are dancing by the light of the moon. I sometimes wish I lived in a black and white world or at least a simpler time with claw footed tubs, and fluffy towels taken straight from the dryer and wrapped tightly round you. Whether it’s watching an old film or soaking in a hot tub, I wish you five (or more) minutes peace this week.
~b

Sheep

2011-03-13T20:45:00.007-04:00

I know some people count sheep in order to get to sleep. I say why wait until bedtime. I am surrounded by sheep all day long. 1. There's the curly ram that rides in my car. 2. The bank given to me by a friend that sits in front of my placemat at the table, a companion to each of my meals. 3. The card I bought at the Holly Meade studio that T and I accidentally stumbled upon when we got lost in Maine. (She wrote and illustrated a family favorite: “John Willy and Freddy McGee.”) 4. The knitted sheep that came from Columbia when friends adopted their son. 5. The wooly slippers that adorn my feet when the temperatures drop. 6. The lone glow-in-the-dark sheep that has somehow survived after all of the other flock has gone. Where I'm not quite sure and as I'm not a shepherdess I don't know how to call them home. Perhaps they are helping other kids to conquer their fear of being alone in the dark. Or maybe they are off having adventures like the sheep we used to read about when T was little. They were often: on a ship, in a shop, and our favorite, in a jeep. As with the adventures in the aforementioned guinea pig tale, there are lines I can recite still.

If for no other reason, I love these fuzzy animals for the wool that they give, allowing me to knit the hats, scarves and shawls that I bestow to family, friends and brand new babies. If I could, I would most certainly have a lamb (or two) in our backyard. But when the weather turned, I would want to bring it inside, and I just don't think we have the room. Quite simply: Sheep are sweet. Sheep are super. Sheep are swell.
~b

All week I have been wondering about sheep. I considered writing about my summertime stints as a waitress at the GyroWrap Cafe in Georgia where lamb meat was shaved off giant, ever-turning spits and delivered to tables where large parties tipped badly and spoke so thickly sometimes I couldn't quite catch the meaning of their words. Or I could write about the plea posted to the town's listserv by our local sheep farmer for all of us to keep our eyes out for a missing sheep. Which was sad. And then a bit scary as we all pondered (digitally) what might be large enough and motivated enough to drag said missing sheep away. I could write about wool, my mother's constant clicking needles guiding that wool into sweaters, socks, shawls, hats. I even thought about riffing on Shaun the Sheep. How I envy that solitary farmer, set in his ways, fermenting in a damp stone cottage with only his faithful dog and independent farm animals to interrupt his pizza and telly. But March is already long, the days are still gray like the ropey coats of dirty farm animals, and so this. A lovely label on a delectable wine, shared with family on a night that feels almost feels like spring. Almost feels like it's time for the lambing.
~a

Memory

2011-03-08T10:08:00.005-05:00

Sorry for the posting delay. Equation of excuse: ice storm plus power outage plus sick children.

Three children in the family means a one-to-one child-parent ratio is fairly rare, unless you're the baby, who tends to be my constant extra appendage (a welcome one. Mostly.). But Sunday night T and I braved sleety rain, billowing curtains of snow, and roads of steely glare during our drive to and from Vermont to see dearest b - the other writer of this blog - graduate, an event all the sweeter for its allowance of time alone with my oldest son.

The last time T and I were alone for anything other than our nightly few minutes reading together before bed, the movie Ratatouille was in the theaters and I declared date afternoon with my first born. It was warm, it was raining. We were late. Shocking, I know. We ran from the car to the Nugget Theatre, T riding on my back and giggling in a purely kid-like way that he doesn't often do, that he has never often done even when he was younger. We sat right up front, him on my lap, and ate our weight in Reeses Pieces, and afterward walked slowly back to our car in air that was darker and dryer. “I hope we do this a lot when you grow up,” I told him. “When I live in New York City we can go to movies all the time,” he told me. Back then he wanted to live in New York City; now he wants to live in Ancient Greece. “I hope you remember this,” I told him. He didn't answer; I remember that he didn't answer.

I haven't asked him if he remembers that afternoon. If he doesn't I'll have to remind him of it with all my own interpretive phrasing.

Sunday night we arrived home late, tired, soggy. Happy, and somehow proud of our admittedly stunted journey to Vermont. We retired our boots on the mat and even though it was way past bedtime we spent a few minutes reading together in bed. We may not have traveled all that far, but being together made the trip broad and lingering. I'll remember it. I'll remember T reading his book during the welcoming reception, leaning against me through long happy speeches, and remarking that the french fries he ate with dinner on our way home made him feel "strangely sad." I hope T will remember, too. But we don't quite get to choose what our children remember, what they forget from their concentrated time with us. We just have to hope the lasting images aren't all chores, homework and time outs.
~a

From the first page of Eleanor Brown's “The Weird Sisters”: 'These [letters] were the kind you save, folded into a memory box, to be opened years later with fingers against crackling age, heart pounding with the sick desire to be possessed by memory.'

This is what I will remember. Inspiring words. Hugs. Tears. Poems read aloud. The tuneful melody of a song being performed by a band of friends. Cheers. Shouts. The campus called a Narnia. Smiling husbands and exuberant sons. A room full of intense emotions. Love.

I gave my presentation to a roomful of family, friends and interested students on Sunday; followed by our graduation ceremony. It all passed by in a blur, as much as I tried to sear certain moments into my memory. I knew I could not capture it all, but I made every attempt to claim as much as I could and call it my own.

The day itself started out rainy, but turned to snow in the afternoon. As soon as the ceremony was over my family departed for home. The ride took all of them much longer than anticipated, such is their reward for their commitment to attending my special day. I was left to spend the night on campus, which was my original intent, all in the hopes of saying a gradual goodbye. But the snow continued to fall throughout the night, enclosing us the campus in a white, gauzy cocoon. It snowed for more than 24 hours, delaying my departure. Because of this, I was inadvertently given the chance to spend more time with my friends with no agenda, deadlines or specific intent. It became a gift, one of the nicest I've ever received. We sat, talked, ate, laughed and stretched my time here to its very limits. Walking back to my room as the day came to a close, I saw that someone had written in the snowbank--as one might write into the sand-- “You say goodbye and I say hello...” I do not want to say goodbye; not to friends, advisors, nor to my room or anyone, anything here. But I will try to keep it all safe in my memory, this special place and my time out of time. I will cram it all into my memory box. Shut the lid tight to prevent it all from spilling over, though the memories threaten to leak out and drift away from me. It will mix and mingle with the other Significant Events kept there: first date, first kiss, wedding, birth, first steps, and christmas on the beach. I will seek solace and pleasure from these thoughts, when I too am possessed by the desire to remember.
~b

Bible

2011-02-26T15:15:00.004-05:00

One of the Vineyard memories that remains crystal clear in my mind is of A and I sitting on the couch. We had already done a scan of the bookshelves in the house, calling out titles that surprised or interested us. “The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis” was a treasure that I had discovered in the upstairs bedroom; it was one I had always been meaning to read but hadn't yet had the chance. I opened it up, skimmed through the stories and pronounced that I would read aloud “The Old Dictionary.” This seemed like the perfect way to spend part of an afternoon, so we positioned ourselves and began to listen. The story didn't disappoint. The narrator describes the old dictionary and the way that it gets treated, which is reverently and with care. The actions are then compared to the way the son is treated, needless to say there are differences. I remember reading that story, giving substance to the words as I pushed them out of my mouth and into the air between us. There weren't many pages, but for that short time I was enraptured.

We have several dictionaries in our house, many still in use. For some reason, perhaps it's my tendency to preserve the past, I can't pass them by. Scanning the tables at a book sale often turns up several discarded dictionaries that eventually find their way into my car like orphan puppies in need of a new home. Fortunately they do not require feeding or walking, but they do take up shelf space--in our house that's in high demand. When someone needs to define a word, I try to stress the importance of a dictionary. Using one is becoming a lost art. It's become common to look up any word on the computer. An answer always comes back in seconds; no need to fumble with pages or squint to read the print. Yet discovery and serendipity are also lost, being surprised or excited by another word while in pursuit of the first is half the fun.

I often wonder if we're the last family still using these books. Could it be that we're becoming an endangered species? Not only do we look words up, we also read aloud. In fact we often can't help ourselves, if we're reading something humorous, particularly eloquent or feeling rather indignant at an author's point of view, we make the others stop what they are doing and recite aloud for everyone to hear. And, believe it or not, we sometimes read aloud at night. (I know it's shocking what we consider to be entertainment!) All three of us, two dogs and the cat climb under the covers on our little full-sized bed and listen to the evening's chapter. Times like these I think back to the years of oral storytelling and other families sitting around the fire as someone read aloud from the bible. I feel a connection to that tradition and try to do our part to pass it on. To us some books are meant to be passed down from generation to generation. I don't know that anyone would say that about an electronic reader, but I'm hoping years from now a small child will inherit my dictionary and feel a tingle as they run a finger along the pages looking to define a word. Not knowing that with that very act they are in a way defining themselves and they way others see them. I know I want to be seen as someone who preserves and honors traditions; treating my sacred books with reverence and grace, yet putting them to good use.
~b

I've been aware of this word looming large on the bloggy horizon. We have no bibles here. I've never read the bible, though parts have been read to me by earnest young women in cardigans who visit on summer afternoons and manage to not look askance at my skintight, black spaghetti strap tank top and partially - sometimes totally - naked children. I don't know where these women come from; their accents are slight but specific and they smile blissfully in the face of hot dusty roads. When I offer lemonade they graciously decline without giving any sense of misgiving, as if one neighbor over had already plied them with beverage and now they were floating. For us, one neighbor over is half a mile away.

So bibles are foreign to me until I consider them as a book you return to for clues on how to live your life. Turns out, I have plenty of those. Carol Shields – have you read Carol Shields? If not, go do so, I'll wait. U.S.-born, lived in Canada most of her life, raised five children while writing a dozen books and becoming a full professor at a university. Her novels are long stretches of quiet insight after which your life is somehow fuller, and her stories are hushed moments of power that make you rethink, reimagine, redo, refill. William Trevor taught me the best of what I know of writing fiction. Jane Austen, well, she's Jane Austen, who makes me want to sit up straighter. The Things They Carried is the closest I've come to being a soldier, except maybe in my role as a parent. A Wrinkle In Time I have read about every year since I was twelve because it reminds me of contradiction. And possibility. And evil. And good. A few months ago T read it for the first time and I could almost hear his mental geography stretching to encompass Meg, Calvin, Charles Wallace, the witches. The pile could tower, the list could go on. All my bibles.
~a

Health

2011-02-20T17:42:00.011-05:00

A few years ago a friend of mine had cancer. Friend? I see her maybe once every five years. I went about a dozen years not seeing her at all - college, distance, life, all that etcetera. But when we were ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen - we were close. Sleepovers every weekend, secrets revealed on a daily basis, picnics in graveyards, bike trips to the beach, imaginary adventures in once-decadent gardens overgrown in the woods. Now we might send email greetings on birthdays. But yes, friend. Against difficult odds she beat the cancer in her throat and will likely bear witness to most of the lives of her two young children. But there are lingering concerns; treatment is so often a sequel of disaster. When I think of her now, undergoing surgery twice a year to clear enough scar tissue to continue the privilege of breathing, I remember her once singing with a voice unaffected by the future. Elementary-school-aged, she was too shy to face the crowd in her mother's parlor, so she sang turned to the wall while her younger sister stood beside her and her mother accompanied on the piano. Had cells already mutated by that point and formed the foundation for illness? Maybe. However much broccoli I force my children to eat, however firmly I deny them processed food (some days not too firmly), however often I wager with various forces of the universe, I really have no control over their health, or dreaded lack thereof. Disease is often - always? - random. Recent photos of my friend show her smiling, always smiling, usually with an arm around a child or two. She isn't looking over her shoulder for the next avalanche of doctor's appointments, hospital visits, and co-payment invoices. She's obviously appreciating this new definition of health. But there's a fierceness to her expression. She is far, far from that small girl who fears a crowd of faces listening to her sing. Now she'd simply relish the notes rising from her own throat.
~a

“... for richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health....”

M and I met at a bookstore in Pittsburgh. It was my first day of training. He happened to be there before his shift since the store was air conditioned and his apartment was not. The first words he ever spoke to me were, “ I think you're going to like working here.” And I did. I was a Children's bookseller at that store and I loved it. Eventually my boss opened up a new store. I received a promotion and went with her as the Store Trainer. In that position I began to travel around the country opening up new stores. For the three weeks that it took to open all the boxes, shelve all the books, and train the staff I felt a sense of belonging. It was such a short time, but those bonds were intense. After a few years I was promoted to work at the World Trade Center store, and from there I applied to be the first Children's Web Editor for the company. I flew to Michigan for a series of interviews and while I was there I visited the original store in Ann Arbor. I felt like I was making a pilgrimage. To commemorate the occasion I bought myself a copy of “Little Women.” I read it on the plane ride home and thought of the life that might lay in front of me. I got that job and then one eventually in a store in New Hampshire. M and I had decided we wanted to settle in Vermont. By then it seemed that the company as a whole was moving in a different direction. In 2000, M and I each made a choice to work for a local independent bookstore. Leaving and starting over was difficult. I had made so many friends and I would miss the breakroom conversations as well as feeling that connection to stores all over the country. But the parting was amicable and I think it was the right decision.

As with an ex spouse or lover I've had mixed feelings about the corporation that launched my profession/ passion for Children's books. Others may view it as a big evil chain out to destroy the independent stores, but I still have fond memories and have always wished the people working there well. It's easy to slip into the idea that the split was the best thing for all concerned. Surely, you tell yourself, your “ex” has doing well. It seemed the most logical outcome at the time, each of you have since gone on to bigger and better things. Such is the way of life. Occasionally a snippet of news or gossip reaches your ears and you sometimes wonder what it would have been like if you had stayed together.

This week M and I learned the devastating news that the store where we met is closing, as is every store where M once worked in the several states we once called home. The idea that those stores won't be there thriving--filled with books, people and conversation--is almost unfathomable. As with a dying friend, part of me wants to drop everything, rush to the bedside and offer a hand or handkerchief for support. They may put on a brave face, but the rattling death cough gives away the truth of the situation. Such dire circumstances make you reevaluate your choices. I'm not the type of person who leaves, I believe in sticking around through good times and bad. But I did leave...

Yet I know there is nothing that I can do to change the situation, what's done is done. The threat of absolute finality fills me with a desire to revisit the past. I tell myself that I must move on and keep my memories close. Sadly, there won't be the chance to make more. If ever there was a time that I could relive, it would be the first few months of working in that store in Pittsburgh. I'd bet there are many former booksellers, now scattered all over the country, who'd probably say the very same thing.
~b

Light

2011-02-13T18:42:00.007-05:00

Wake up to the sound of small animals jumping around in their cages, insisting to be fed. Feel an absence next to you and realize your husband has gone down to feed the dogs. Blearily make your way downstairs feed the cat and the bunnies who are impatiently waiting. Head back upstairs and discover husband has gone back to sleep. Curl up under the covers and pull out the book about Hemingway's wife you desperately want to finish. Read a chapter, then two. Try to ignore dog whining, then get up and take her out. While outside notice that the sunrise looks eerily familiar to a sunset. Try and calculate how long it's been since you've seen the sun make its way into the sky. Collect the dog, skedaddle into the house and grab the camera in order to get a photo for the blog to represent Light. Put on the correct lens, zip up husband's coat and dismiss the idea of gloves. Once outside, notice that the trees and the sky are beautifully reflected in the car window, quickly take a picture. Make your way carefully across the snow covered street, only to discover that the clouds aren't as pink as they used to be. Glance up and see that further along the road they are still quite beautiful.

Start to make your way up the hill, congratulating yourself on choosing to wear your boots instead of your sons fake, though fleece-lined, crocs. Continue up the hill, hoping no one looks out the window to see the determined, somewhat crazed look in your eye. Perhaps they will mistake you for a hunter, yet you are holding a camera, not a gun. Know that they will not think of you as paparazzi, no one here is worth filming in that way. Instead they may see a crazy lady with her hair going every-which-way, wearing her husband's too-big fleece coat, and too-big pants that don't seem like they would belong to her, but do. Be thankful for too-big pants that are lined in fuzzy material and extend well below ankle-length, leaving no fear of an errant winter draft coming in. Keep walking in the direction of the well-lit sky. Your watch drops off as if to signify that time no longer matters. Pick it up, dust it off and put in husband's coat pocket. Keep walking, notice that the only sound is the sound of the snow crunching under your boots. Catch the sound of someone laughing. Shrug it off when you realize it's only the crows, not a neighbor who can't believe what you will go through to take a photograph. Stop. Put the camera up to your eye, focus and frame the shot. Silently thank your neighbors for repainting their house this fall, dull white would not have provided as much contrast in your picture.

Begin the slow journey home, hoping the shot is what you wanted it to be. Curse yourself for not bringing gloves. Curl your hands inside coat sleeves and walk faster. Be careful not to slip on the snow covered road as you make your way down the hill. Notice when you get home and walk past the car that the image reflected in the window is no longer the same as the picture you took before you set out. Shake your head and ponder at the fleeting light and think of how lucky you are to be up this morning to witness the beauty. Quietly head into the house taking off the coat and boots. Make your way upstairs to sleeping dogs, sleeping husband, and somewhere a sleeping boy. Pick up the book and continue where you left off. Keep smiling though it makes your cold cheeks sting. Come downstairs later to a husband making coffee. Needing your watch, retrieve it from his coat pocket. Your husband couldn't be more surprised if you pulled a quarter from behind his ear. Smile your secret smile, know that your morning adventure wasn't a dream --you've got the photo to prove it.
~b

Mornings are a rush. Drink coffee, walk dogs, make breakfast, pack lunch, feed dogs, feed horses, refill frozen buckets with hot water lugged from bathtub, check for eggs under warm, clucking poultry. And then drink coffee again. Did you remember to pack your homework? Is today library day? Are you sure those gloves are dry? It's karate day, I'll pick you up after school. Out, out now. Now. When two boys and one man exit the house it's like a sigh. The baby and I (yes, I know, not a baby, but still the one staying behind) take stock of the day ahead and settle into our preferred approaches. He asks for a cookie. I insist on oatmeal first. He suggests a morning movie. I start reading a book about pirates, or Amelia Bedelia, or Scooby damn Doo. When that doesn't hold his fleeting attention I break out the train tracks and the kitchen floor turns industrial. Sometimes we sit in the hallway and discover light. Particle? Wave? We have nothing further to contribute to the collective body of knowledge, except this: morning light on the wall is as good as playdough. And when he tries to eat it, there's no cleanup. "What did that taste like?" I ask. "Ummmm... cookies?" he answers. Every morning is a new opportunity to hope.
~a

Boy

2011-02-06T20:44:00.005-05:00

Wednesday night I took a bath. "What are you doing?" asked L. Who was supposed to be packaged in bed under three blankets, asleep or at least drawing in the dim light, humming hushedly to himself. "Having a tubby," I told him. "No, I mean, what are you...doing?" Oh. He was referring to the bar of soap, the razor, my leg perched awkwardly on the faucet. "Shaving my legs." And then, of course, he asked: "Why?" And I thought briefly that thirty or so years from now L's choice of life partner may be influenced by the echo of this sight of me, his mother, sitting in a tub of tepid water shaving her legs. "I'm going to see my midwife tomorrow and shaving feels like the polite thing to do," I answered. "Now. To bed." And he bounced away. And I finished my moment of personal hygiene. And thought maybe it was strange to shave one's legs for one's annual appointment with the midwife. And, as the water grew yet colder, thought more about my midwife and how I was worried about her because the receptionist had muttered something about medical leave two months ago when I tried to get an appointment. But she was still seeing patients; it must have been a temporary thing. My midwife has girls, two of them, whom I know through scribbled drawings on the office walls. 'I love you Mommy.' 'Mommy I missed you today.' Crayoned pictures of rainbows and happy families.

The next day, my legs gleaming smooth under my jeans and long underwear, I hugged my midwife and told her all in a rush how good I was. We talked about my boys and her girls. We shared happy notes on husbands. Toward the end of the visit I asked, "And how about you? I heard something about medical leave?" She didn't quite look up from the note she was writing in my chart while she explained about surgery, a port in her abdomen, chemotherapy that started in four days. She held my hand to a flat disk under the skin in her belly where the treatment would enter. I don't remember her words, but with typical elegance and grace she let me know that five years is an optimistic chunk of time.

Her daughters are now much older than those notes they once wrote for their mother. College age. Not so old that the absence of a mother won't be unusual and tragic. Maybe it is at any age. My boys are only three among the thousands of babies my midwife caught during her career, but she is the only midwife to catch any of my babies, and my experience of those births is gratefully tangled up with my memories of her calming presence, her soothing intensity, her sharing of our joy, her sharing of her tea cup.

You think life is like a chess game, that if you can just keep your focus three or four moves out you'll be able to defend your most important pieces. That with a touch of luck and concentration your queen and your king will survive until the end of the game. I know, of course I know, that life is nothing so obvious. And I'm crap at chess anyway; my almost-nine-year-old boy has no problem beating me. I've been hugging my men extra these past few days. I've been repeating I love yous until they look at me funny. When they ask for a chess game I say yes instead of later. It's all I can do.
~a

One summer when I was in Junior High I went with my best friend and her family to visit their relatives in Ohio. It must have been a large car--big enough to accommodate seven kids, two parents and our stuff--but I don't really remember. What sticks in my mind the most is meeting the cousins. There were three boys and two girls. The youngest boy was just my age, everyone else was older. That first night all of the little kids (my friend's brothers and sisters) found a place to sleep upstairs in the bedrooms, while the rest of us each claimed a space downstairs in the livingroom. The floor was soon covered in pillows, blankets and sleeping bags. Eventually everyone must have dozed off, but I stayed up talking to P , the next-to-youngest boy. I remember laying there, our bodies in opposite directions while our pillows and heads nearly touched, talking about anything and everything. We compared notes about music, movies and books and when we exhausted a topic we moved on to another. At one point we must have noticed the light filtering in as the sun came up; somehow we had stayed up all night. I don't think I was even tired the next day, I was still so giddy with excitement over meeting someone so similar. I had never stayed up all night before, and not many times since. Each one, though is a special memory.

I don't remember what it was like to leave their house after our vacation was over, though I must have been sad. P and I corresponded for quite awhile afterwards, and discovering a letter in the mail from him was cause for celebration. I hadn't ever met someone who I connected with so fully. It amazed me that I could be so close with a boy. Until then I had had several crushes from afar, but nothing that ever became anything more than me constantly thinking about that boy and wondering what it would be like for him to notice me. Growing up I never had brothers and only one boy cousin. I had several uncles, one who was an avid storyteller and a great babysitter. Back then boys were a foreign species, I knew they were different but I could never understand what made them tick.

There are times now when I pull out the memory of my nightlong never-ending conversation with P. I hold it gently as I consider it and admire its loveliness. With today's technology I could probably discover where the grown-up P has settled, but I prefer to keep our time together perfectly preserved in my amber tinted mind. Over the years it's grown softer around the edges, more from its age or my holding it close, I don't honestly know. Yet I hope I'm not the only one who remembers. Perhaps there's a boy out there who thinks about a certain girl and the night they spent together talking and laughing while the sun made its way into the sky.
~b

Justice

2011-01-29T16:48:00.007-05:00

From Tom McNeal’s soon-to-be-published novel, “When Deena raised her head into the dappled sunlight to take the band off her ponytail and shake out her red hair, Judith said, ‘Your hair in that light looks like something someone should paint. Doesn’t she Willy, Doesn’t she look like she should be painted?’ Willy regards Deena and replies ‘Problem is, I can’t paint a lick. If I painted her it wouldn’t come out pretty at all. What you really need is somebody who’d do her justice.’”

I’ve never had my portrait painted, I couldn’t imagine sitting still that long and having someone study me so intensely. I can’t even bear to have my picture taken. When I have looked at the results in the past, I instantly recognized that the camera got it all wrong, I’m certain I look nothing like that. So instead I hide behind the camera capturing images, and sometimes people. T has started remarking on this behavior, trying to convince me that he will need to have my pictures for some unspecified time in the future when his memory starts to fade and he can no longer remember my face. But so far I’ve not been swayed. I just don’t feel that the camera does me justice, it can’t capture my essence and so the images I see are dull and flat and ugly. Those pictures are nothing I’d ever want to preserve.

Lately I’m starting to wonder if I’m living my life to the fullest, doing justice to the two arms, legs, brain and heart that I have been given. Often times I wake up in the morning and dread the day before me. I worry that when I’m older, my hair no longer shining in the dappled light, I will look back upon my life and not feel as if I’ve made a difference somehow. As if all of those years recommending books to children hadn’t mattered at all. I’m hoping this is going to change, this will be the year that breaks wide open. I have two major milestones coming in the next few months. Reaching them is starting to feel like I’ve climbed a mountain and I finally have a sense of clarity of what lies below, the direction my life is going to be taking. Maybe they are big changes, like packing everything up and moving to another country in order to help serve a community of people in need. Or maybe I’ll start smaller, trying to slow down and each day to live it to the fullest; leaving my desk for a bit of exercise or finding my way—occasionally—in front of the camera.
~b

Growing up as an only child meant I was rarely challenged over what was fair, right, or just. One cookie left in the package? Mine. Never any argument about whose turn it was in the front seat of the car. I had sole responsibility at choosing the television show. And I never had to share a lap, a toy, a room, or attention, except with the dog. Now I watch three kids navigate the tricky landscape of siblinghood and wonder how anyone without brothers and sisters manages to establish a decent level of respect for the world around her. My boys hold regular tribunals to determine guilt and punishment; they set and sometimes even honor various boundaries; they battle over rights, ideas, perceived trespasses. On Christmas Eve T moved out of Boys' Room and into his own room and while the relationship between him and his next-in-age brother has improved in terms of the frequency of brotherly beatings, I think they've sacrificed a bit of closeness. No more whispered arguments after lights out; when one wakes up scared in the small hours there's no separate breath to reassure. I'm sad that this stage is over, that they have grown up that much more. But still, daytime is filled with regular fraternal explosions, both verbal and physical. They hold each other to the highest standards of justice like nobody else ever will again. And then, sometimes, they share a moment or two of ice cream, like any other friends.
~a

Bread

2011-01-22T05:52:00.004-05:00

I'm not a fan of crust. I even used to eat my pizza slices backwards to get the crust over with until I caught people watching me in college and I hate people watching me even more than I hate crust. So I flipped my pizza back around. And now I either give the pizza crust to the dogs or the chickens (this is one of my favorite things about being a grownup, eating basically what I want. Amazingly, I often want spinach.) But Italian bread, French baguettes, crusty rolls - clue me in, what's so great about a hard shell? M knows my discontent of crust. That became clear last weekend at the local pub when we escaped the children in a rare moment of alignment (visiting grandparents, awakedness, and nobody was vomiting). I browsed the drinks menu, trying to decide between wine and gin (I know! The pressure!) while M performed small miracles with the bread basket. "Here, I turned this one inside out for you," he said, and presented me with the steamy guts of a dinner roll. When you are small and dressed in pink, marriage is a fairy castle encased in swirls of magical mist where you and your prince eat ice cream all day long and sing duets with sticky lips. When you are grown up and dressed in corduroys and a heavy brown sweater, marriage is someone knowing how you like your bread. By the way, I chose gin AND wine. And, later, coffee.
~a

There's bread for toasting, bread for grilling and bread for paninis (Red Hen's “Cyrus Pringle” is our favorite). There's crusty bread that you tear off with your hands because you can't be bothered to find a proper cutting implement--in some ways it just tastes better, even without jam or cheese, so flavorful it just melts in your mouth. Then there's the bread slathered in butter and garlic that often accompanies a pasta dinner. The smells coming from the oven as it bakes excite the nose and the taste buds. Whatever remained after dinner we wrapped in foil, put in the fridge, then reheated the next day. But growing boys need something to sop up the littlest bit of sauce at the bottom of the bowl, that rate of growth seems to require every last crumb being consumed. Left overs here are now on the endangered species list.

Then there is the bread that is made more than ninety miles from our house, it is a rare and special treat when we bring Great Harvest home. When we lived in Michigan we often stopped at a certain plaza in Ann Arbor on Saturday mornings. We visited the little animals at the petstore, stopped in for a bit of playtime with the Thomas trains at the White Rabbit toystore and then each of us got a free slice of bread at the Great Harvest before making the agonizing decision over which loaf to bring home. My favorites were: “Red, White and Blue,” a hearty white bread with red and blue berries throughout, and “Chocolate Cherry Bomb,” a name which doesn't quite due justice to the sweet surprises found in each loaf. As M and T made plans to go to Burlington this weekend, I visited the website to swoon over the bread menu and make suggestions for what to bring home. I must admit I started dreaming about it. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, distance often intensifies desire.

Then Friday something happened that dispelled any thoughts I may have had about wanting a round loaf of bread. The day was just about over, when in walked a friend carrying a wrapped rectangular package that seemed like salvation itself. Once a year, and only then, does my friend engage in the act of baking her Eggnog bread. This ritual can only occur when the key ingredient is available and, as such, can only be dreamed about the other twelve months out of the year. Having her bring me one of these loafs was such a special treat that I almost jumped for joy. We no longer work together but manage to see each other a few times out of the year. Getting this bread in January made me feel as if the new year had finally begun. There were no countdowns, dropping balls, fireworks or dragon dances, rather the slicing of a piece, the accompanying cup of tea, savoring each bite, and using your finger to get every last crumb. I am not a growing teenage boy, but I do know that it will be awhile before this bread comes my way again.
~b

Yellow

2011-01-16T19:08:00.007-05:00

M proposed to me in front of our friends' house. It was the end of a lovely late Spring vacation in Vermont and we were just about ready to make the arduous trek back to Pennsylvania. I don't remember his exact words, but what does remain vivid in my memory is the way I closed my eyes to kiss him. My arms were wrapped round him and all I could see was golden sunlight. Afterwards we got into our two-seater, Bronte the dog in back, and drove home to the beginning of everything. To this day if I am sad or depressed, I often close my eyes to try and conjure up that image, that feeling of complete and utter joy.

It would be many years before we would be able to call Vermont home. First there was the attic apartment, which was too small to set up our kitchen table--we never unpacked several (40+) boxes. In Michigan we lived in an apartment complex. One night Toby and I had to evacuate due to the suspected bomber living next door to us. Fortunately M was busy with a bookstore inventory so we spent the night there with him. We finally made it back to Vermont in 2000. This is the third house we've lived in here. After seven years it's been the longest we've ever stayed in one place.

We've painted the walls of our bedroom yellow, in some ways an homage to the event of engagement. (With a name like Sunny Beach it might have been an attempt to recapture some of that old Cape Magic.) It took us several days to tear down the floral wallpaper in order to make-over the room. Each time we opened the can of paint I was reminded of cake batter pouring forth. I know it wouldn't have tasted sweet had I dipped my finger in to taste it, but it sure felt that way when we finally finished and moved the furniture back to its rightful place.

There are two kinds of yellow it seems to me. There is the kind that calls your attention in order to caution or warn: yellow lines dividing the road, SLOW Children at Play signs, or traffic lights. Then there is the brighter type that excites you and propels you forward: school buses, Ticonderoga pencils and boxes of brand new crayons with the tips still intact. It is this color I see before I go to sleep each night, my husband already deep in slumber. My lamp illuminates the walls, surrounding me in warmth. The glow is still with me even after I turn off the light and put my head to the pillow moving towards my dreams.
~b

Winter here is gray. Gray snow, gray trees, gray sky. When we painted the interior of our house eight years ago, after gritting our teeth through six months of construction with the aim of enlarging our house to accommodate one wee baby, we put colors on our walls. Green, blue, lavender, brown - and in the hallway, a decent yellow trimmed with a dusky orange called "burnt pumpkin." There are days I barrel through the hallway, down the stairs, sharp turn on the landing and into the kitchen, usually carrying a load of something (dirty clothes, brimming trash cans, a child or two) and ignore the persistent cheer on the walls. Less frequently come the days I pause and notice the way the sun hits the upstairs corner in a silent explosion of light. If I were a kid in my house I'd spend long hours on the landing reading a book. I'd eat snacks there, drink cocoa, entice a dog to join me. I'd defeat long winter days with time spent surrounded by yellow walls. But I'm not a kid in my house, not usually. There are too few of us here able to light matches and assemble recipes longer than four ingredients, so I have to be one of the grownups. Until I get to be a kid again I have to use different methods of enduring the persistent gray: laughter, cozy books, endless cups of red rose tea, family hugs, the occasional hothouse yellow sunflower on my table. The hallway helps, too.
~a

Lamp

2011-01-03T19:53:00.005-05:00

The week before Christmas our washing machine died. This was not a sudden disaster; I'd been ignoring the warning signs - bangs, moans, high-pitched whistles - for weeks. But on Sunday there arose from the basement a horrendous clunk that could be ignored no longer, especially since M was in the house. Our cozy at-home day in front of the fire (board games, Christmas wrapping jobs, art projects) slipped wistfully away away as M and I looked at each other over the heads of our overly-excited children with a shared premonition of expensive repairs. He dug out his toolbox. I, knowing wrenches as well as I know Cantonese, put on the kettle.

Our friend who lives nearby knows wrenches rather well and offered to help instead of whiling away the playdate hours upstairs with me in the brightly lit kitchen, where spiders know their place and only rarely risk a trip to eye level. Brave woman. She descended into the depths of the house and I, feeling guilty, followed, bearing tea since I knew my fix-it talents would be less than adequate. "Wow," she said. She was NOT looking at our mangled washer. "Nice lamp."

The basement lamp used to reside next to my side of the bed. But nearly nine years ago it was replaced by a baby and since then it's slipped from room to room, demoted for reasons of dimness, aesthetics, and awkward switch placement until two years ago when it ended up in service of a fix-it job in the basement when the overhead fluorescent burned out. And there it stayed. It emits enough light to do laundry by and we never, ever turn it off. My only explanation of the longevity of that bulb is: magic.

Several hours and four cups of tea later the machine was pronounced dead. It lies in various pieces on the basement floor, a mere clunky ghost of the domestic vision it once was. It can be fixed, probably. For anywhere between two and four hundred dollars, plus a bunch of man hours we can either pay for or suffer through on our own. Mostly M's own; see above: Andi, wrenches.

Instead of fixing it we bought a hand washer that sits like a patient puppy in our downstairs bathtub. Almost every day I wash a few loads, spin them in a centrifuge, and lump them into the dryer to get them fluffy. Laundry has become the best part of most days, which means I am deserving of either your envy or your pity. In the summer I'll hang our clothes outside on the line and may go months without visiting the basement; our lamp will burn and burn with no witness. If the bulb does flicker and fail, we may not discover the lack of light until next winter when the snow and ice beat us back to the dryer in search of convenience. By then, perhaps the spiders will have woven a permanent mantle around the lamp, rendering it useless for much else. And there the lamp will stay, in our basement graveyard, with the washer for company.
~a

More than 25 years ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I first read “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.” The moment Lucy entered Narnia and met up with Mr. Tumnus I was hooked. Now when I visit someone and we sit down to tea I think of these characters having a little snack in his suitably furnished cave and wish that real life could be that cozy. After finishing the first book I raced through the others. When I got to “The Magician's Nephew” I was astonished to learn that it was all about the creation of Narnia. The lampost where Lucy and her dear friend the faun met, it was actually created after Queen Janis threw an iron bar at Aslan the Lion. This book chronicled the beginning, when the land was being created. At that time so long ago, anything that got stuck into the ground grew. Amazing. Here it was, the genesis of the world in which I had felt so at home. But I wondered why it came so far into the series. Forever after I chose to put “The Magician's Nephew” first whenever I reread Lewis.

Years later Santa brought T the complete set of the Narnia books in hardcover. It was his first Christmas and though he was only five months old, Santa knew these were a necessity. I was surprised to see that the books had been reordered and that “The Magician's Nephew” was now listed as number 1 and that “Lion” was now number 2. I know many, many diehard fans who insist the other way was what Lewis had intended and as such should not be messed with. I personally find this new order makes more sense. I love to read about How the world was created before meeting up with the Pevensie children. In fact, this book ends with the creation of the very wardrobe Lucy walks through when she discovers Narnia.

In the years since I first discovered this world, I have come to realize that it is the How of anything that matters to me most. Who, What, Where and Why have their place, but it is the creation, the backstory the very construction and context of something that interests me. I was never the type of kid to take things apart, but my dad did. For a time my family lived above an industrial-sized garage where my father would fix cars, but once or twice he took them completely apart. It was this understanding of how the pieces fit together that provided a deeper appreciation of technology. I seem to have inherited this desire to make sense of the world around me. I want to see which pieces fit together, their cause and effect. Once the right construction is achieved and the puzzle reassembled, then all it takes is the flick of a switch. I've found that it's like turning on a light, the glow from understanding illuminates the darkness and confusion.
~b

Dream

2011-01-03T07:47:00.006-05:00

We wish you the sweetest of dreams come true in the New Year...

~b

Stem

2010-12-26T22:32:00.007-05:00

Yet another sacrifice I have made for my children: wine glasses with stems. Back in the golden days, evening could find me sipping my nightly dose of red wine from an elegantly stemmed goblet which would relay no excessive heat from my fingertips to the delicately balanced alchemy within. I liked to drink while reading on the couch. I still like to drink and read on the couch, but now the book is usually something about Star Wars, Thomas the Tank Engine, or Henry and his big dog Mudge, and now my wine glass is a sturdy creature that used to hold jam from the farmers' market. We do have one wine glass leftover from the eight-year-long stemware massacre; I save it for special occasions, like when all my children are somewhere else after seven o'clock at night. It's not that they are malicious, jealous little people who insist the greater portion of my attention be on them, not my wine, but everywhere they go chaos follows and wine glasses suffer. Someone breathes weirdly in someone else's ear and the whole room erupts. Someone mutters an offending comment on the nature of someone else's artwork and battle ensues. No, my house is not conducive to stemware. Someday my lone wine glass will have friends again. But for now it holds a certain allure, a timeless grace wrought by its solitary stature. I can go on vacation just by sipping near-decent wine from a special vessel, without ever leaving my couch.
~a

Last week in the midst of all of the end-of-school thesis chaos my husband brought me flowers at work. Not the cut bouquet type of flowers that need arranging, a water-filled vase, and will die shortly afterwards; but rather a lovely scarlet-colored cyclamen known as Tianis Fantasia. (It seemed an aptly named gift, a cycla-men from my bike-riding husband.) Wordplay aside, after taking off the plant’s protective clear wrap, I made sure to read the instructions. I went over everything at least twice so I wouldn’t screw anything up. I knew that I needed to water the plant from the bottom, and not too often. Unfortunately, I came in a few days later to discover the stems splayed everywhere, the poor plant dying of thirst. I set it in a container of water, and in a short time all was well. The first thing you notice about the plant is that the flowers are quite striking; they seem to mysteriously spring up out of the green leafy undergrowth. As the stem that holds them extends, it is bent then begins to right itself; the flowers start to unfurl, darkening as they open. The leaves appear so sturdy and the flowers so vibrant but delicate--each depending on the stems to hold them aloft. This is the part of the plant that is neither showy nor eye catching, but is necessary. A quick look outside reveals the bare stems that are sticking up out of the snow, they are a promise of the season that awaits us. A renewal, rebirth, the relief/re-leaf of Spring. Like our bones or spine, they add structure, a rigidness that defines and supports us. In a way they are like husbands who know you’d rather have a growing plant than a dying floral arrangement, sturdy and dependable with a burst of color or surprise when you need it most.
~b

Stomach

2010-12-20T07:22:00.004-05:00

I don’t remember a December such as this. The end-of-the-years in my memory are filled with lights and festive feelings. The starkness of the snow outside has always been in sharp contrast to the warmth and luminescent atmosphere inside. This year is different. My mind has been elsewhere, focused on my studies to the exclusion of everything else. At the same time there has been a feeling of loss permeating everything like a heavy fog. I know four individuals who have lost a father this month. They range in age from 9 to 49, and yet the absence is razor sharp for each. My heart is where I felt their pain the most, it is an ache that won’t quite leave.

Finding time or inspiration for a blog entry this week seemed out of the question. In our free magazine bin at the Library I happened to glance down and spotted a book called, A Woman in Berlin. The cover was intriguing, so I took it home. Reading the introduction in bed that night I discovered that the diaries were an actual account of an anonymous woman over the course of eight weeks in 1945. I read on, interested to learn more about her. I was then rewarded with this quote: ‘My sole concern as I write these lines is my stomach. All thinking and feeling, all wishes and hope begin with food.’ There it was, like the clink of a shovel when it hits buried treasure. Yet I didn’t know how I was going to use this sentiment to inspire my own work. December is a time for food: eating and relishing, tasting and savoring. Plates and stomachs are often full, at least it seems that way to me. In some ways this is our gift to others: jars of homemade granola, bags of roasted nuts and tins of cookies. We also try to extend the bounty to other families by giving to local organizations. Everyone should be full this time of year, on good cheer as much as good food.

Still I didn’t find this quote to be the inspiration I was looking for, so I kept on reading. After a few pages I found it, the connection I had been seeking: ‘My stomach was fluttering… I felt the way I had as a schoolgirl before a math exam—anxious and uneasy, wishing that everything were already over.’ This is exactly how I feel about my thesis. There are butterflies inside my tummy who have taken up permanent residence. I think they’ve made themselves at home there, with a picket fence and a cute little handpainted mailbox. At all hours of the day I am anxious and nauseous, the thought of failing has me so paralyzed my fingers can’t often find the right keys. Then I try to put it all in perspective. The narrator of the book’s introduction illuminates a bit of the woman’s writing process when he says, “When a more permanent order was restored she was able to copy the contents of her notebooks on a typewriter.” My words aren’t a matter of life and death, and I am fortunate enough to be writing at a computer where I can revise and edit to my (or my advisor’s) heart’s desire. I am so lucky in so many ways. Maybe I should be thankful for my butterflies, they mean I care about my work. Heart or stomach, I feel just as deeply with each.
~b

When I was about three or four months pregnant with T, I noticed that the space between my hip bones had filled out enough so that if I could tie a string across my stomach it would lie taught against my skin instead of sagging. I had always been skinny, and suddenly I wasn't. But I was pregnant, so I felt no compulsion to diet, exercise, or worry. Now I am not pregnant. I will never be pregnant again (knock wood). My non-pregnant weight is at the highest it's ever been. I'm not overweight, but I can't find myself in People magazine, or in any of the Boston Legal episodes we rent from Netflix. I can buy clothes off the sales rack at the local department store, but if I watch too many Hollywood movies featuring women who wear size two I start wondering if I'll ever attract the attention of construction workers again. Not that I enjoyed being, you know, objectified as I walked down the sidewalk, but on certain days a few pointed glances could really lift my mood. Now I make bargains in my head. If I eat salad for lunch I can have a cookie, or five, after dinner. If I manage to go for a run in the morning (back in the days when we woke to at least a balmy forty degrees) I can have a second helping of pasta. I wager, I stretch my neck in the mirror, I run up and down our stairs an extra time or two, and I misapply a virtuous patina to the physical sensation of hunger. What am I so afraid of? Other people's opinions. Embarrassment. That if I am overweight people won't think I'm smart. I know with my head that as long as I'm healthy it doesn't matter what I weigh, but my gut reaction to my current reflection is an internal grimace. I have digested the social concept of beauty: skinny. Kind've makes me want to throw up.

Ruben's women don't look like they worry about the overconsumption of ice cream and rum cake. They look delighted with their dimpled bellies and their thighs that could grip the breath out of their enemies. Botticelli's Venus - the string between her hip bones would certainly stretch to its limit. These ladies should be my vision of ideal, not the slips of girls holding their breath between the pages of glossy magazines or the leggy creatures on the screen who rely on generous cameras and a team of beautifiers for their looks. My stomach is not the enemy. Cupcakes are not the enemy. There is no enemy on the battlefield strewn with waistbands of the past. There is only perception. I always planned to grow old gracefully and cheerfully. I'm going to be one of those nutty chicks with a long gray braid who rides a motorcycle to the bingo game. To be graceful while growing out, too - that's a challenge, but one necessary to my sanity. It's bloody exhausting to mentally keep a running tally of consumed food. I've got other stuff to think about. Like the rum balls I plan to make, and eat, for Christmas dessert.
~a

Eagle

2010-12-12T12:49:00.009-05:00

When I was sixteen I had pneumonia and took to my bed for three weeks in a grand display of malaise. After the first novel day or two it was mostly horrible. My head hurt too much to read, my parents had to work and weren't available for daytime sympathy, and this was in the days before texting - my friends, off gallivanting at high school, were far removed. I couldn't even visit my horse. But, luckily, the Olympics were on. I discovered the rough drama of hockey. I discerned the dynamics of a salchow versus a lutz. I fell a little bit in love with and a lot in envy of a teen-aged skier from some Nordic country that must have had excellent socialized dental services. And I rooted hard for Eddie the Eagle, a ski jumper from England with no chance of placing anywhere near the top of the heap. Everyone rooted for Eddie. He got the most cheering, the most applause, and the announcers' voices changed to cheerful when they mentioned him, which they did often. His jumps were - short. And a little bit heroic. He didn't care that he came in last. He didn't care that his nickname reflected a faint blush of sarcasm. He was thrilled to be there, doing his best, representing his country. Several years later I heard that the qualifications grew more rigorous after those Olympics, and Eddie the Eagle didn't make it on the team for the next round of global games. He wasn't good enough.

One of my boys has that great natural ability required for swinging a perfect arch and making contact - bat or foot - that sends the ball at just the right spin toward whatever spot on the field he wishes. Another of my boys tends to stop mid-stride and spit out his mouth guard to make sure the player he just brushed up against isn't hurt, or upset, or sad. They are both delighted to be part of the team; neither of them is concerned about the varying abilities out there on the junior field. Yet. For their sakes, I wish the Olympics still offered athletes like Eddie, people who are there because they love the game, love the games. A certain type of inspiration is missing from the perfectly calibrated performance machines that now dominate the rink, field, slope, or ring. I miss the men and women who beamed at the crowds as they rounded a turn, who flung ice from their skate after a successful leap. I miss Eddie the Eagle and his delightful lack of talent, his obvious joy at just showing up. I spent three hacking weeks wholeheartedly involved with those winter games, and his is the only name I remember.
~a

A few months ago a patron came into the Library looking for a picture of an eagle. She had recently taken up painting and wanted an image that she could reproduce on her canvas. We went downstairs to find her a book that might have what she was looking for. I could tell that she was unaccustomed to being in the Children’s Room, but we found her a very detailed photograph.(It’s a little known secret, if you want to learn anything—a language, how to knit, the rules for a particular sport or card game—try a kids book.) She left feeling happy, and in fact came back in a few hours to show me her completed masterpiece. She had indeed captured the bird’s regalness and majesty. But more importantly was her sense of accomplishment, which had to do with finding the right inspiration.

I don’t know why she felt the need and sense of urgency to draw that particular bird. I myself have never seen one. I do remember a story a friend once told me about driving along and noticing an eagle soaring in the sky. She quickly pulled over so that she could see it without running the risk of an accident. She said she saw it land on the side of a rocky ledge and thought she glimpsed a nest. Home sweet home.

It’s the nests that always inspire me, made out of anything that can be found: twigs, leaves, bits of ribbon and hair. They provide shelter and warmth; a place for eggs and baby birds. Babies that spend the day peeping and chirping, awaiting the return of a parent with a worm or bug. A nest is the place for the babies to return to as they practice flying, some needing a nudge out to get started. I wish sometimes that I could fly just like that eagle. The closest I have ever been is galloping on a horse, wind streaming through my hair. If I could, I would have opened up my wings and then let go of the reins. Maybe I'm like the baby bird, crashing and crashing to the ground before I get the hang of it, trust myself, and soar.
~b

Hard

2010-12-05T13:48:00.007-05:00

Hard is working on your thesis to the exclusion of everything and anyone else. Hard is putting your nose to the grindstone while your family spends the Thanksgiving holiday weekend with friends. Hard is ignoring the movies that have been coming to the local theater, turning a deaf ear to the siren song of buttered popcorn. Hard is turning a blind eye to the ever-filling laundry hamper while the stash of available clothes is rapidly being depleted. Hard is typing even when your fingers hurt, or the sty in your eye is making it difficult to focus. Hard is getting up the courage to let others read your work. Hard is reading through their critiques and criticisms, then putting all that well-meaning and intentional effort into making your work better than it was originally. Hard is thinking you will never arrive at the end, or when the end comes much sooner than you were realistically expecting. Hard is putting all of your thoughts, ideas, hopes and dream into words that come to comprise the longest document you have ever created in your life and hitting the Send button. Hard is thinking it was the end, put knowing there will still be tweaks and adjustments. Hard is resisting the urge to fling the printed manuscript across the room. Hard is the agonizing wait to find out if it has been given the seal of approval. Hard is finally finishing and staring at the door that has just been opened, before stepping into unfamiliar territory wondering “Now what??!” But easy, ahhhhhh. Easy is…
~b

These days, the hardest thing I do is yoga. Sure, raising children is hard, but it's hard in the same way digging a hole is hard: one shovelful of dirt after another, the occasional boulder that takes massive effort (and restraint) to budge. Not hard in a dangerous way. Yoga isn't dangerous either; there's pretty much zero chance of being escorted to the emergency room with broken bones, facial wounds, or bloody stumps. Yes, my hips hurt. Yes, my shoulders feel a bit tapped. But I don't feel weak and mortal upon entering the studio. I used to laugh at danger from a great height. I climbed trees to the thinnest branches, where, when the wind blew, I swayed along with the sticks that barely held my teenage weight. I used to ride a horse that thought it a joke to spring me from his back every. damn. day; I obliged with legs of vapor and never acknowledged I might die from this. I jumped out of a plane once. With a parachute, but still. Now, the swings at the playground give me pause. I rode the tea cups with L at the fair last year and nearly had to plead with the toothless attendant to stop the ride. The top of the Super Slide at the same fair - I couldn't look out, only down at my own shaky feet. I live now in a soft tunnel padded with ever-present laundry, bolstered by the conviction that I am sparing my children potential heartache by staying so safe and so alive; but it's an excuse. Really, I've just turned into a chicken. Have you heard about these woman who leave behind their babies to climb treacherous mountains in distant countries which may not have adequate emergency response times? My knee-jerk reaction is to grimace and shake my head: how selfish. But I'm hiding a deep, persistent envy. I'm not as brave as those women. I've made it a daily habit to turn away from the hard stuff. Maybe, like so many other things (lingering over morning coffee, all-day Jane Austen movie marathons, working for more than five minutes without interruption), risk will come back into my life when my children are further along the path toward adulthood. I'm not sure I'll ever leap from a perfectly good plane ever again, but at least I might get back on a horse. Or even climb to the uppermost branches of a swaying tree.
~a

Cabbage

2010-11-23T20:34:00.008-05:00

I began my love of coleslaw at Friendly's. Do you know Friendly's? When I moved to Atlanta in an ill-fated pique of commitment to the wrong man I discovered that Friendly's was region-specific and oh, my taste buds, - I missed Friendly's. And not even the ice cream; good ice cream is easy to come by - B&J's, Breyers, Edie's - but good coleslaw is another story. I lived a couple long years without good coleslaw (sometimes you can get decent stuff at a grocery-store deli, but none of the grocery stores in my part of Hotlanta complied) and I might admit, though barely, to considering the coleslaw factor when M and I first had the idea of moving to the frozen north. Just a few days after trekking a bleary thousand miles up the eastern seaboard in a super-sized moving van (car towed behind) while trying to keep three violent dogs far enough away from each other so they couldn't mutter bad dog words under their breath, we stopped for lunch at Friendly's. I can't remember what I had - probably a chicken sandwich - but I do recall the coleslaw was...disappointing. Like so many other things in life, the memory and anticipation was better than the actual moment. But. Several years and children later, in the midst of a farm share allotment that was a bit heavy on the cabbage, I learned how to make my own coleslaw. I use purple cabbage and extra dijon. I am awesome at making coleslaw.

I only read up to page 110 in that book, You Can't Go Home Again (which is why Thomas Wolfe's house burned down the night before I was scheduled to visit) but I think the title is the most important bit. I could never go home to Friendly's coleslaw. Or to the exact Friendly's where I first found with that crunchy, pickley taste; yesterday, driving around my old hometown with my oldest boy in the back seat I discovered a Dunkin Donuts parked on the spot where there used to be a Friendly's, where we used to celebrate school chorus concerts, where we went for lunch on certain Saturdays, where I'd walked up and down the stone wall that rose and fell beside the ice cream window. There's another Friendly's in town, up by the highway where most of the development of the last few years has fallen. We had lunch there a couple of years ago and while guiding my middle boy to the bathroom, infant hanging on one arm, I noticed a black and white photograph of a bakery with its name high in the window: Danforth's. There, amidst the near-tangible aroma of greasy of diner food, the smell of that bakery rose high in perception and I could have been three again, holding the weathered hand of my grandfather on his weekly trip to Danforth's. You may not be able to return home to your truest starting point, but stay open to evidence and it will find you: restaurant photographs, the cabbage on your counter.
~a

I’m a Sort-of -Vegetarian, I think that’s the technical term. I eat poultry and seafood, but not pork or beef. During my senior year of high school my boyfriend bet me that I couldn’t go a year without eating meat. Never one to pass up a challenge, and having been heavily influenced by the Smith’s song “Meat is Murder,” I set about eating other types of protein over the course of the next twelve months. And vegetables, I made sure to include some of them in most meals. Though I am not one to take joy in a meatless menu, I do have a fondness for a variety of vegetables and have come to associate them with different memories and meals. Onions sautéing in the pan when I come home must mean we are having paninis, T wouldn’t eat a sandwich without them. Carrots are wonderful in a ginger soup, which happily no one will eat but me. I could eat bowl after bowl and never tire of the earthy orange broth. Green beans are best cooked on the stove with tomatoes, garlic and red pepper flakes--I have been known to pinch a flake or two too many. Tomatoes are lovely; especially the tiny ones that can be popped into your mouth, anticipating the flavorful explosion before your lips are closed. Corn on the cob, fresh picked, reminds me of Morning Glory farmstand and the ease at which it is cooked and then eaten. Yellow as the sun, chins dribbling with butter. I’m not a fan of cabbage, nor coleslaw or sauerkraut. Instead cabbages remind me of the now closed bookstore, Cabbages and Kings. We always stopped there during our vacations to the Cape. We visited right before it closed and it saddened me to know that kids wouldn’t go there anymore with fistfuls of change in order to buy themselves a ticket to a new world. It saddens me too to think of all that is lost, like my grandmothers recipes. I would love to have her knowledge of piroghis and Sunday soup and turkey ala king. If only I had the chance to sit down at her table I would eat Salisbury steak, meatloaf and even cabbage rolls.
~b

Soldier

2010-11-22T20:35:00.005-05:00

As she set out the teacups that reminded me of my own, our talk turned to thrift shops and second hand stores. When M and I lived in Pittsburgh, we often spent our time together visiting such stores for treasure, both books and tea. His eyes lit up when he found a book about war he didn't yet own, my pleasure came from adding to my eclectic collection of china.

Our host for the Library Tea was a former children's librarian, whose list of qualifications included: extraordinary baker; owner of cups, saucers, plates, pots and other tea necessities; and visitor to the homes of the Brontes, the Alcotts and the Austens. Even though our event was intended for a middle school audience, I was enraptured. I hung on her every word and was especially entranced when she spoke of her visit to the Bronte house. She led us up to the moment when she saw the open box in Branwell's room and knew that the toy soldiers who were the inspiration for Pauline Clarke's “Return of the Twelves” were real. Our shared remembrances of author connections turned to favorite books of the past; what had challenged the adults when they were in middle school. The middle-schoolers talked of the first time they read a book meant for adults; discovering the joy that comes from not understanding everything but knowing enough to get through the book and feeling satisfied for the experience. All the while we merrily munched on scones, cookies and cake.

Serendipity, happenstance, coincidence, perhaps it was fate that again brought the fortuitous juxtaposition of tea and soldiers to my mind this week. Finishing Nicole Krauss's “Great House” I felt a jolt of recognition as I read the lines spoken by Weisz explaining how he came to track down lost items : “They begin to talk and I go back with them to their childhoods, before the War. Between their words I see the way the light fell across the wooden floor. The way he lined his toy soldiers up under the hem of the curtain. How she laid out the little toy teacups.... They've bent their memories around a void.” In the the battle against losing objects of the past, I am a soldier armed with memories. If only I had my Grandmothers recipes, her telephone stand. It is often the space around the hole that shapes us and defines us. Yet we move forward, sustained by cups of tea and conversation.
~b

"Want to play war?"
"Yeah! How about World War I?"
"Nah, we do that one all the time. How about the Korean War?"
"I know, how about Future War?"
"Let's play Future War!"
They creep across the lawn. They hide behind fallen limbs and crouch as still as they can in the under-brush. They ambush me and the dogs with lazery shooting sounds and jabbing sticks. They fall to the ground, dead, and their brothers-in-arms drag them to safety where they revive and reload. Sometimes limbs are blown off. Sometimes there are disagreements and they call on me to set them straight: "Which side was Ireland on? The Vietnam War happened, like, last year, right?" We are a fairly peaceful family, but - not to be sexist - boys like war. And guns. And grenades. And tanks. They like to be heroes, they like to be saved. T draws rather magnificent military maps. L makes swords that can actually produce bruises and blood with nothing but printer paper and tape. Listening to them leaves no question as to the origins of the present-day, real-life wars; we may hear about money, oil, human rights, turf, but mostly it's a confused kind of ego out there in the hot sun. My boys revel in the language of battle, the sense of power that comes from firearms, even imaginary ones. But when someone falls too hard, or heads get knocked together during a tactical surge, they cry and come looking for me. Hugs, murmuring sounds, the occasional band-aid, and popsicles put these soldiers back right.

For a while, T had a collection of plastic toy soldiers that he bought with his own money after M and I see-sawed on the moral indications of plastic soldiers. We relented and T spent many after-bedtimes arranging his soldiers in intricate stations on the floor of his loft that I inevitably destroyed with my knees when I climbed the ladder for a kiss goodnight. Last week I tried to find some for a picture, but only one surfaced from the back of the tubby-toy drawer in the bathroom. He stayed for a night and a morning on the bathroom windowsill while I (and the rest of the family) fell victim to a stomach bug, and then just hours before our planned photo shoot, B bit his head off. Poor fallen soldier.
~a

Trouble

2010-11-15T08:07:00.006-05:00

I remember the sound and feel of the receiver as I slammed it down, an abrupt period to my rant. The corded rotary telephone lived in the hall, and once I hastily ended my call, I scurried to the bedroom and looked for the best place to hide. Those mattress springs are burned into my memory, they were all I could see as I waited with baited breath under my sister's bed. Hiding there seemed the obvious choice: all of my Cricket magazines were boxed up and stored under my bed, and there I could only be approached from one side. Huddling next to the wall meant no one could reach me-- or so I thought. Moments later there were the pounding of footsteps, screen doors slamming and voices being raised. We lived in a small house, it didn't take long to find me. I don't remember who pried me out, or the punishment that followed, though I am certain I was grounded. It couldn't have been For Life, even though that's what my parents must have threatened. Here I am, decades later, decidedly Not Grounded. The cause of my parents' consternation: upon learning that I could not possibly bring home a new kitten until after we returned from our once-a-year-family-vacation to my aunt's house in Cleveland, I had called my very sweet neighbor and berated her for not being kind enough to petsit our brand new kitten while we were away. It had seemed such a simple solution in my ten-year-old mind. Now that I am grown, or at least older if not truly grown up, I don't seem to get in much trouble. I don't have anyone looking over my shoulder issuing punishment when necessary. After all these years my feelings towards animals haven't changed much. Though I am meant to be devoting every spare moment of my life to my thesis, I spent today with a friend. Weeks went into planning our meet-up in the middle so neither had to drive more than 90 minutes. There was to be much chatting and catching up on our way to visit a litter of baby bunnies. Some people may wonder at the need for pets, especially coming in to an already chaotic household. Each animal must be fed, cared for and loved, much in the same way as you would a child. Why go through all of that hassle, driving such an incredible distance and repeatedly getting lost (even though the printed out directions seemed very clear this morning before I set out.) I can only answer that dogs and cats love you like no one else. And bunnies, especially brand new baby bunnies, have the very softest fur and the cutest little ears. They are definitely worth the trouble.
~b

When my children are grown, when I am no longer responsible for transportation to piano lessons, karate lessons, swimming lessons, and cub scout meetings, I will sell my car and never drive again. I will ride a bike. Up mountains, down mountains, over covered bridges, through tree-lined, laughter-filled suburban loveliness. Yes, I know. I live many miles from a grocery store. Winters here aren't conducive to open-aired travel. And the last time I rode a bike further than a half mile I was...15? 16? I don't even care. Cars are nothing but trouble, even when you have a husband that knows (mostly) how to fix some of the broken bits. Cars require endless gasoline, they make weird, squeaky, worrisome noises that can ruin a day, they cost a lot of money and depreciate in value. I figure I have another 15 years before I can safely denounce driving. I will be a fifty-year-old woman on a bike, long gray hair streaming behind me, a smile on my face (close-lipped, because of bugs), trouble-free.

Earth

2010-11-07T20:03:00.006-05:00

How to make a garden: for two years throw your compost onto a small patch of land, not too far from the side door to make the walk a hard one in the winter but not too close that you can smell the rotting coffee grounds. Let the chickens eat their fill of your waste, scrabbling and scratching and fertilizing the dirt beneath their feet. In the fall, use a big blue tarp to drag leaves from the back yard, the front yard, the side yard, the bit of yard by the road - drag all those leaves over to your soon-to-be garden and cover it as if it needs a woolen blanket to keep warm. Moan plenty about your aching back that night, even though your pain is a proud one. In the winter, throw compost on the top of the snow. Worry about bears. Throw more compost on the top of the snow. If the bears are distracted by the garbage they won't bother coming over to the house. In the spring of year number two, trade with your neighbor - tilling services for fresh-baked bread. "Smells like it'll be good," he'll say after running over the plot a few times with those strong, jagged tines. He's not talking about the bread. Feel proud of your good-smelling dirt. Plant four tomato plants (started inside several weeks before, with help from the Baby who eats some of the planting soil; he is number three and eating dirt warrants only an exasperated look) even though frost is still a possibility. Plant a row of lettuce. Plant six broccoli seedlings, and a few egglants. Two days later kick madly at the chickens who assume these, too, are for their benefit. Whine to your husband about a fence. Replant the poor assaulted seedlings in pots and put them on the porch railing. Whine more about a fence. Rejoice when the fence appears (after more whining). Plant lots of tomatoes, broccoli, celery and Brussels sprouts and also encourage the various volunteers that surprise you every year. And carrots. Plant carrots, because the children like to pull them up and sometimes they even eat them. In November feel wistful when you pick the last of the carrots. Wish you had planted more. Wish you had a bigger garden. Whine to your husband about a bigger garden. Recognize that you love the garden even more once all the harvest is gone, once you have laid leaves and hay again over the earth. Dirt smells good.
~a

In Science class this week T was asked to do some research on Kittinger and his unintentional breaking of the sound barrier in the 60's. At that time he parachuted from an altitude of 20 miles above the earth's surface. Turns out there are two people currently in a race to break that record. Reading the article I was surprised to learn all about the great lengths people have gone to and the risks involved. Getting up high enough seems to be the tricky part, though freefalling that fast can prove to be fatal. Glancing through T's assignment, I was reminded of an image that often flashes in my head at the strangest of times. It's of the woman in the movie “Apollo 13” staring up into space knowing that her husband is there, and yet has no contact with anyone. (M and I went to the theaters to see it to celebrate our first anniversary.) Having not lived through this period of history it still hit me hard, still does. It is the longing on her face that often haunts me. Recently young T (a's oldest son) asked for a birthday cake that would represent the earth as seem from the moon. Maybe a rather unorthodox request, but to me it seemed magical, like he was gaining some perspective. It was a chance for us to celebrate his turning a year older and possessing the ability to see oneself and one's planet from a different place altogether. Major milestones. The going out may be the exhilarating exciting part, but there too is the return. Always the return. The chance for the daredevil, spaceman, adventuresome boy to put two feet firmly on the ground; the solid steady earth welcoming him home.
~b

Sour

2010-10-30T06:38:00.010-04:00

There's a whole lot of candy in our house. Halloween means two bouts of trick-or-treating plus school parties and M is away next week so guess to whom the job of consumption falls? Not on the children - cavities! - at least not all of it. But don't tell them. I am one of those parents who sneaks into the candy cabinet after her kids are asleep and chooses multiple delicacies to snarf while watching TV or pretending to work. I know, pathetic. And they never notice that their bags are lighter every morning. I have always been a big fan of sugar. Two tablespoons in my coffee, a diminutive canyon sprinkled over my cereal, cupcakes (oh, cupcakes), cookie dough even though I know it will give me heartburn - yes, me and sugar are like this. So the thought of being alone during the off-hours to, ahem, borrow as many individually wrapped pieces as I can carry makes me quake with both anticipation and dread. Because, after 35 years and three babies, my metabolism no longer takes the chocolate, caramel and nougat in stride. Now those delectable ingredients sit and wait for me to do something proactive - like getting my heart rate over 60 - before they take their leave. If they take their leave. Some of them seem determined to squat on my ass forever. And, while I picture someday being able to climb mountains and run a dozen country roads before dawn, the present-day reality is that exercise time is at a premium. (see above: children.) One saving element: Sour Patch Kids. Sour candy? I just don't understand the appeal. If only all their candy were sour...
~a

I headed south Tuesday with books, camera, waterbottle and friend in tow we left a somewhat gloomy sky behind us. I was being interviewed-- for a radio broadcast as it turns out-- and had wanted some company for the trip. In return I promised a delicious lunch, good company and a stop at at least one yarn store. But alas my interview took much longer than I had anticipated, and the plan to drive even further south to the Yarn Store of Our Dreams was just not to be. I was cranky, I was crabby. I was sour and dour; I just couldn't seem to get the bad taste out of my mouth. This may have also been caused by my accidental overdressing in anticipation of a much colder day. In fact the weather was so glorious, we walked over to the park with my camera--the colored leaves were calling to me. We tried to console ourselves by coming up with Plan B. But. The yarn store in town happened to be closed on Tuesdays. The other nearby yarn store I had remembered as being wonderful from a few years back had closed in March. Disappointed doesn't begin to describe my mood. We got in the car and drove a bit before stopping at Green Mountain Spinnery, the saving grace of our trip. We looked at new books, admired colorways, fantasized about patterns. We chatted with the wonderful woman there about charity knitting, trips to cold places and Canons vs. Nikons. She even allowed me to take a few pictures. The yarn they were hanging reminded me of long strips of apple or lime licorice, the kind that's coated with a little bit of sugar so your mouth is instantly filled with a sweet and sour sensation. From there we drove home feeling pleased about the day. As I pulled up to my house, I was welcomed by the glowing lights from the windows. I walked in the door only to be greeted by risotto on the stove and was immediately handed an icy cold beverage; as it so happens a mixture of black cherry seltzer and sour cherry nectar. This is definitely the sweet life, how happy I am that it's mine.
~b

Working

2010-10-23T22:18:00.008-04:00

I remember being shushed when I was little, usually in the middle of the day. “Your father is sleeping” was a phrase that was constantly batted around, the words nattering around my head like mosquitoes that wouldn't leave me alone. My father occasionally worked the midnight shift at the coal mine. When they weren't on strike. I often wondered what it was like to spend so much time deep, deep underground, leaving the sense of the outside world behind him as he boarded the elevator and descended. Each night the black earth swallowed him whole, only to deliver him to us the following morning. When I grew older I found myself working through the night for a time. After I returned from maternity leave, the store where I worked in NYC offered me an overnight shift. I was responsible for overseeing several shelvers. Our job was to get as many books as possible put in place for the holiday shoppers to peruse and perhaps purchase during the day. Every night I boarded the train with T in his sling. People would give us the strangest looks, as if to wonder why a baby would be out at such a late hour instead of sleeping in his own little bed at home. Nowadays I work underground, though the windows keep me apprised of the weather outside. And just like my father couldn't help but bring his work home--the coaldust covered his face, hands, and clothes--my work clings to me when I leave for the day. Spilling over into my car, my house, the rest of my life; it seeps, oozes and cannot be contained. 'She noticed her books spilled on the floor of her car. That was the way it was with books: you forgot they existed; you carried them around as though they were part of your body. Then you looked down and you were wading in them.' (From Four Spirits by S. Naslund)
~b

Last night T went to bed with one last request. "Please will you wake me up at chore time to help you?" he begged. Pleaded. Nearly cried. "But it will be late," I stalled. "It will be cold. And...late." Because yes, children should learn to help with household chores, and yes, parents should encourage any eagerness towards hard work that our kids accidentally reveal, and yes, it's nice to have help for the dark, cold final round of animal duties. But jeez. Having boys help you feed horses means it takes twice as long and there's all that panic about huge platter-sized hooves landed on wee child feet. And if they help you walk the dogs there's a constant stream of observation when what you'd really like to do is read the book you're juggling among the leashes. Having my boys help makes the work harder. T could sense my reluctance and, connivingly, stayed awake until he heard me rustling around downstairs with coats and boots and leashes. "I'm too scared to sleep," he called cheerfully as he launched round the staircase landing. "Is it chore time?" So we did the chores together. He wore the headlamp, blinding me at every turn. He threw a flake of hay. He held Pope's leash. He found the two eggs our 20 chickens managed to produce (all in a day's work). He fed the dogs their treats and decided he too needed a snack, so I sent him back to bed with a cream cheese bagel and instructions to brush after eating, which I know he forgot, which I issued knowing he'd forget. And then I returned to my spot on the couch in front of The Office (American version, though I love both) and finished my wine, realizing our collaboration hadn't been painful. T has reached a useful age. Soon my boys will be able to handle the chores all on their own while I supervise from my warm house. Which is exactly why I had children: free labor. Oh, and because I like to steal their bubble gum while they sleep.
~a

High

2010-10-17T19:38:00.004-04:00

It used to be that I could climb most any tree. Up high, nestled safe within its branches, I would read and survey the land beneath me as if I were in a magical land all my own. But those times have come and gone. I no longer hang upside down from branches, or ride aloft on someone's shoulders to catch a better glimpse of a parade. Funny how we don't make a fuss over Last Times as much as we do with First Times. Is taking your first step, first tooth or first word any more memorable or worthy of attention than the final scaling of a sycamore; the bark's texture leaving a mark on your hands that will fade before your eyes. The first and only time (but hopefully not the last) I looked out from the heights of the Eiffel tower I couldn't quite believe the beauty of the city spread out below. Such a unique perspective I will never forget, it's a memory that I revisit often. Something about being that close to the sky has left a mark on me, invisible to most anyone who doesn't know how to see it. Alas, there are no miles-high-beanstalks appearing under my bedroom window, or bouquets of balloons waiting to whisk me off to parts unknown if only I hold on tight. Instead my feet remain firmly planted on the ground; weighted down by demands, responsibilities, secrets, schoolwork, and other necessities. I only wish I could be as unfettered as a dandelion seed. Free to go where the wind might take me, visiting the highest hills and beyond.
~b

When I was a teenager I knew a horse that died. Not an old horse, not a sick horse. A young horse with loads of talent, a sweet disposition, and a crowd of people who loved him and felt his absence like a blow to the belly. Most of all his owner. It shakes you to see someone you know as gleeful and freakishly well-developed in her ability to laugh at herself and anyone else saddened to the point of tears, and more eerily, quietness. The barn was glum, we were mired in grief. She went north to her sister's place, not half an hour from where I now live, and came back not healed but at least shaking her head and almost smiling. "I stood on a mountain," she said, and picked up a pitchfork. Her sister is dead now, too. Though the events are unrelated, they feel linked by image and circumstance. Twenty years later I remember her words when I look up from my own distracting problems and notice that nearly all the landmarks that surround me - mountains, trees - will still be here long after I'm gone, my kids are gone, my own horses are gone, our worries and mistakes and triumphs faded to disappearance. We are all brief. We stand on mountains and then pick up our pitchforks. It's all we can do. The world is changing; my boys will depend on a very different geography to inform them, support them and comfort them. But I imagine the mountains will stay, for a while at least, the highest ones. I hope.
~a

Girl

2010-10-11T10:03:00.005-04:00

There are no dolls in our house. No Barbies, no ribbons, no sharp, butterfly barrettes, no pink corduroy skirts, no Babysitters Club books. No princess-themed bedrooms. No blue jeans with embroidered flowers, no tap shoes, no rainbow headbands. Sometimes people ask: "So, are you going to try again for a little girl?" and I slay them with one of my are-you-crazy looks, but the truth is I feel a tiny, almost non-existent tug deep in my belly when I think about how there is no girl in our house. Not that I would consider trading any of my glorious boys, but. still. When I was pregnant with, oh, one of them, I was sure I'd have a girl, and she'd be named Sylvia and she'd have all the sense I missed when I was a teen-aged girl. She'd ride horses, volunteer to read to sick children, save her babysitting money for a trip to France. She'd sigh and clue me in to the pop icons I never recognize when I hear them mentioned on the radio. We'd argue, disagree, cry a bit, make up with peanut butter cups. I'd adore her boyfriends, some of them. I'd ache when she went away to college, to work abroad, to raise her children near the ocean that I miss. She'd help with all those pies and dishes at holidays and I'd cuddle her children and tell them stories about when their mummy was a little girl. There is no girl in our house but me and I don't even know how to wear makeup. Sometimes I miss the little girl that will never be, her absence like an occasional ghost, but then a boy makes a loud noise and I am thrust back into real life where everything is as it really should be.
~a

The first time I saw the ocean was as a young girl on a visit to Philadelphia to visit my great aunt and her family. I can still see myself sitting in the water, pink swimcap on my head. I would flail my arms around in an attempt to tread water; a modified doggie paddle of sorts. I remember feeling so small next to the gigantic Atlantic. But I need not have worried, having my cousins in the water all around me meant that I was safe. The day ended with the pack of us piling into the back of the station wagon and stopping at the store for candy dots, bits of sugar attached to a strip of paper. Clearly the city had much to offer, somehow life was sweeter there. Now when I visit the ocean (I have yet to experience the Pacific) I often feel tiny. It reminds me of my younger self, my smaller self. No matter the weather I am always excited, sometimes giddy with anticipation. People often stroll on the beach, perhaps ramble or meander--I skip. We took our annual family vacation this week. At the beach, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a redheaded girl--eyes glued to binoculars studying the vastness of the water in front of her. I wondered what she was searching for while these lines ran through my head: “For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)/it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.”
~b

Carpet

2010-09-30T08:20:00.008-04:00

For a long time we lived with a carpet that featured a stain from when our last fluffy black dog died - Tupelo. We're not sure what happened. There was vomiting, drooling, whining, stillness. We buried him in the front garden, the four of us digging spring-cool dirt and replacing the blanket whenever it blew off Tupelo's body. We tossed into the grave Baba's ashes and the two containers of frozen placenta we still had in the freezer. We are not people who take care of things in an expedient manner. We linger. We procrastinate. We let the ashes of a long-dead dog keep a place on the mantel. We rearrange frozen placenta every time we unpack the weekly groceries. We live with obvious stains on our carpet long past an emotionally appropriate moment. Finally, I ripped up the carpet in a fit of pique, knowing a bare, ugly floor might motivate us to put something in its place. I was pregnant with our third child and really leaning towards a nap, but there were these two boys at my knees who needed me conscious. So, for fun and distraction, we ripped up the carpet. And then, over several weekends, replaced it with pine boards. The upstairs floor is also pine, milled here on our land when when we cleared a few acres for the horses. I like the idea of the trees which used to grow here now serving an alternative purpose just a few dozen feet from where they were previously rooted. Just as dead dogs and placenta rot in the soil out front, giving the cosmos an extra dose of nutrients and karma. If it were allowed, I'd be buried there too, my bones mingling with Tupelo's, my skin rubbing up against dirt enriched by the placenta that fed my babies when everything was on the inside. Long after I am earth, our old stained carpet will still be whole, rolled up in a landfill somewhere. Maybe the stain will still be visible to the worms who try their hardest to eat through it, with limited success.
~a

Funny thing about my friends in New England, none of us have carpeting. Sure there are rugs, but mostly it’s bare wood floor; oftentimes hewn from trees that were found right outside the door. You’d think that someplace where the winters are this cold we’d delight in the deep, thick pile of comfort underneath our feet. Not so. Our practicality gets in the way, as does our love for the beauty of the wood. In fact when we visit a house, we bring our own houseshoes. We expect to leave our outside shoes by the door and that the floors may be a bit cold. But if the house we've stepped into is not one we're visiting but rather thinking of buying, our minds start racing. How quick could we rip up this shag remnant and discover what exactly is hiding underneath? Then we imagine ourselves getting out the sanders and polishing the floor to a high shine. We can retire the vacuums, shake and hang the rugs as needed, and then sweep, sweep, sweep: dust, dirt and dog hair. Though we may not approve of carpet inside, outside is another matter. All of my friends still have this innate sense of joy when it comes to falling leaves. This is one carpet that causes us to kick up our heels, take a running start and leap right in. We hear the crunch and crinkle of the vibrant colors, knowing that soon enough we will need to rake, shred and mulch. But thank goodness, it never ever requires the vacuum.
~b

Anger

2010-09-26T20:23:00.009-04:00

T was assigned to read a McCullers' short story for English class this week. I was surprised to discover that it was one I had never read before. The pivotal moment in the text happens when the main character finally loses his temper at his young cousin who has always worshiped him. His anger is not read hot, more like the raging white of a heated poker. He even says that if he had been loud things might have been easier to fix; but his tone was quiet and even, his words filled with hatred and the damage irreparable. I have been known to have moments of loud and seething rage, an unfortunate characteristic I inherited from those who came before me. What angers me most are the loss of moments and situations that cannot be fixed or repaired even with the best superglue: deaths, breakups or treasured mementos that accidentally slip to the floor from the hands of a child. I am not one to throw or hurl objects, rather I seethe then weep at their fragile, broken state. When discovering chipped cups and plates that have accidentally jostled too harshly in the sink, the loss of control rears it ugly head. I am blinded, wishing that I could somehow turn back the clock as if the moment hadn't happened.. Though I tell myself sometimes scars and cracks add a layer of beauty. Still my life is not one you would read about in a magazine where everything is placed just so; more like a story in an old used book, the pages dogeared from rereading. Our family's tale is filled with beauty, anger, joy and pain. All of those moments add up to a life, and without one you couldn't appreciate the other. We are not glossy or shiny, hiding our true feelings beneath the surface. Rather our edges are occasionally tattered and torn but we move on, using superglue or the emotional equivalent whenever needed.
~b

I have so little to write about anger. I could tell a few stories about M's temper and how I learned to laugh at the vibrant shade of red his face reaches at certain key moments of the weekend, but thanks, I'd like to stay married. I could describe how angry I was at the dentist for making me feel bad last week because I was half an hour late for L's appointment when it was all their fault for sending the wrong time in the email confirmation. But that would be embarrassing, because it was actually my bad - apparently I was confirming the correct time for a different appointment on a different day. I could poke self-inflicted fun at the way I got mad at him when M pointed out I had a scratch on my lens when really I was furious at myself for never buying a clear lens cover. I could admit to getting mad at B the other morning when he needed to be held and I needed to make breakfast for humans, dogs and horses; I could describe how loudly I yelled (very) and how hard he cried as he wandered upstairs looking for Daddy, how he scowled at me later on from the comfort of M's arms and said, "Mommy is mean." I could tell you: that judgement broke a little bit off my heart that won't grow back. But that's a bit saccharine and not quite what I was thinking, which was more along the lines: you won't be two forever. "Make an angry face," I told T this afternoon while we waiting for somebody, anybody to buy cub scout popcorn from us outside the local video store. He complied and we laughed. Yes, I get angry sometimes. But mostly it's all terribly entertaining.
~a

Sleep

2010-09-19T12:12:00.003-04:00

After stopping in at the Farmer's Market before going to work on Saturday, my eyes travelled over to the community garden. Standing tall with heads bent were several sunflowers. As I walked among them I began to feel as if they were slumbering giants, towering over the flowers and vegetables. I was sure that if I gently nudged them the would awaken. Each seemed to have a different personality: One was an older, bumbling man with a gray mustache who had dozed off on his watch. He didn't even know how loud he was snoring. The other was a tall, willowy woman a bit past her prime, who believed in getting her beauty rest above all else. And then there were the twins pictured here. Awkward, gangly boys who catnapped every spare moment possible in order to offset their rapidly growing bodies. Once asleep their lanky frames falling away from each other as if they had spent too much time in close quarters before they were born; now they needed to take advantage of the space available to them. Teens I find take up a lot of space; though they can occasionally be so helpful, as if to make up for their periods of angst and moodiness. When asked they can rake leaves, walk dogs, or help put the garden to bed. For with Fall upon us, it won't belong before the snow falls and blankets the earth. Flowers, trees and shrubs can stay fast asleep until the spring awakening.
~b

Like most parents, I get too little sleep. Take last night: T is sick and called for me around midnight. He needed a bathroom escort, a glass of juice, another dose of ibuprofen, warm reassurance that illness passes, that no one is sick forever. Which I supplied wholeheartedly with no whisper of falsehood. He knows about sickness that never goes away; in kindergarten his best friend was found to have type I diabetes. His dad has had the storm cloud of type II over his head for the past couple years. But he is eight and cautious and needs no encouragement to fear that which we cannot control, especially not in the tiny hours. After T and I did all we could to appease the gods of nighttime fever we tried to drift off in the big bed, but M is sick, too, which makes his nose loud, so we tried the loft which worked for an hour or so until B cried heartily because he couldn't find me in the big bed, where he'd wandered from his little bed right next door. So I moved again. And was awoken at 5:30 by B who had to pee. Nights are generally more solid now that nobody is breastfeeding. Waking every hour is a thing of the past. And while I'd never wish to return to that level of sleeplessness, there's something about it I miss. The subsequent haze that persisted even after three cups of coffee; the way I never had to worry about insomnia; the intimacy of being the only two (or three) people awake in the entire world. But mostly I prefer the sense of completion I feel when I go to bed these days. I read a few pages, flip to my stomach, stretch my right arm along my side and revel in the idea that I don't have to be on until morning. Usually. Unless sick, lonely boys need me.
~a

Red

2010-09-12T11:46:00.007-04:00

My boys rarely get new toys. B's trike came from the dump, as you may have guessed from the duct tape on the handle bars and general air of discard. B has never commented on its lack of shine, the way the seat tips all of a sudden despite any amount of bolt tightening, the independence of the handlebars from the front wheel. "I ride my trike!" he asks, so politely, and then someone has to push him around the driveway risking various appendages until the eager red trike can't quite meet its goal of benign usefulness and B falls off in a heap while the poor soul pushing rubs her shin where the sharp back step made fateful contact. B laughs. I pretend to laugh and mutter swears under my breath. "I ride my trike!" B asks again, and off we go. B's red trike reminds me of the red trike I had when I was a kid. I don't think mine came from the dump. I remember riding it in the old barn while wearing too-big tap shoes. Someone once told me if I ever walked in an oil patch I'd never be able to swim again, so I avoided those, even with tap-shoe protection, even though those stains came from cars long since traded in for newer models. Just me and my red trike, travelling miles on the same patch of cement floor. Someday B will be able to provide his own motor and my job as pusher will be done. My shins will be grateful for the reprieve, but for now, I'm glad to share these miles.
~a

When I close my eyes I can conjure up her image; walking from building to building, the green hills her backdrop, or standing on stage reciting her poetry, the black curtains streaming behind. Through it all she wears the the red coat that shapes and defines her. There are also red earrings, red skirts and often a red shirt-- it is obviously her color of choice. The words she reads are exhilarating, the lines of verse practically lifting me out of my seat. The color and sounds of this young woman are what remains in my head weeks after I have returned home from school. Seeing her there reminded me of the cover of a recent booksale find.“Girl in a Red Dress Reading by the Swimming Pool” is the cover image for The Penguin Book of Modern Short Stories. I wonder if the book jacket designers had chosen something by Picasso in his Blue period, would I still have felt compelled to pick up the book and read these stories? I have never been able to wear red in that same way as these two women, instead I have relegated this vibrant hue to shoes, scarves, jewelry and other accessories. Perhaps these accents serve the same dynamic purpose, an edge or a border to my own persona. I find that red has the power to define and divide, drawing your eye as a magnetic compass points north. It is the only color of choice for my varied sizes of notebooks,which are always open and available to receive my own scrawl. Passionate words flowing from pen to the page.
~b

Needle

2010-09-06T13:25:00.005-04:00

They say three moves equals a fire; without packing a single box my family can lose most of its earthly possessions as a matter of routine. Like car keys - M is famous for his great, sudden lack of all things necessary for a day at work, including wallet, phone, and keys; they disappear with clever discretion just when he's ready to walk out the morning door. L loses many important items in his own hands. "I can't find my bakugan/pack of gum/vitamin/milk money!" he wails. "What's in your hand?" I ask. "Oh," he says, and bounds away, refuelled with his usual high quota of joy. T gets the most frustrated of the boys, especially when the lost thing is scotch tape and he has six minutes to wrap the present before we have to leave for the birthday party. "I hate this house!" he's been known to shriek. For a while he kept his own stockpile of tape in his loft, but his heart is too sweet and he loaned it to someone and someone lost it. When B loses something, he doesn't quite notice. Something's different, something, but he can't quite put his finger on it. No matter. Let's have a popsicle. Once I lost my wedding ring for three days and resorted to dowsing to get it back. Which didn't work, but doing laundry did - there it was, on the bottom of the basket, waiting for me to save it. Just this morning I pulled on a pair of pants and found a barrette I've been missing since the cool spring weather. I never even looked for it, poor thing. I had as much chance of finding it as finding a needle in a haystack.
~a

Reading one of my knitting blogs this week, I was surprised to see the topic “The Future of Knitting” being discussed. I have often thought about knitting in relation to the past. As a novice knitter of five years, I am often comforted and sometimes overwhelmed by the long history people have with knitting; and with the amazing things that people create out of a ball of yarn and two needles. The variables often astound me--the width of the needle or its length, combined with your choice of fiber (natural or manmade) not to mention color… And then the numerous types of stitches can be charted to create a gazillion different patterns, which often spark many, many more thoughts and ideas. I have books devoted to wool, others to anything but, which includes soy, silk and bamboo. One book features a bag made from plastic grocery bags, and one determined knitter used wire to knit a screen door. The possibilities are endless. On the blog that I was reading, someone commented that in the future we’ll have needles that can tell you when you’ve made a mistake or dropped a stitch. One commenter hoped for needles that would tell you if what you were knitting would turn out ugly. One person wondered if in the future we might be amazed by the materials we would be using, new fibers and substances we hadn’t yet explored. One woman’s post went straight to my heart, she said: “It will always be about sticks and string.” That’s what I love about knitting, it feels like getting back to basics, no matter how nutty the rest of my life may be. Sticks and string are so much more constructive than sticks and stones.
~b

Spider

2010-08-30T09:10:00.005-04:00

I spent the last week at school, my final residency dedicated to defining my thesis and planning out my schedule for the next few months. Each time I make the trek there, I am please to reunite with certain students. It's a treat to spend time with them at meals or walking to the library. Sometimes, though, I feel like a fish out of water - I don't share much common ground with many of them. Social justice and books about Trotsky and the Revolution occupy their thoughts. I'm more likely to rhapsodize about my favorite children's books as a source of inspiration - Mrs. Frisby, Caddie Woodlawn, and Charlotte's Web just to name a few. There are moments at school when the connection is like an electric zing, a phrase or a certain sentiment that's expressed and I feel an instant bond with that person. When engaged in a conversation about creative writing, photography, or what I'm reading now, I can go on for hours. (My friend M and I spend many an evening comparing notes on the novels we love.) On my last day at school I spent a few moments in the Garden House. I had never noticed the intricate carvings: the essence of lizards, turtles, pigs and owls was somehow capture in the wood. On each corner of the roof a bunny or squirrel, sculpted out of stone, stood watch. The house itself, though immensely charming with a few stained glass windows framed in the doors, is in a bit of disrepair; reminding me of the Secret Garden and treasures that await for those who seek them. I instantly felt an affinity with all of the carved creatures, and for the spiders who contributed their own webbed masterpieces to the windowsills.
~b

I used to be afraid of spiders. Not any more. I don't think we lose fears as we grow older; we just find other things to be afraid of. Now I'm afraid of pain. The pain of my children. The cost of college. I'm still a bit afraid of ghosty things, that fear hasn't diminished since childhood. I'm afraid of the demise of the planet, but only in a vague sense - my own five-acre patch of planet is quite lovely and willingly gives us food to eat, so the idea of global devastation is a hazy one. Some days I'm afraid of coming to the end of my life having accomplished nothing but the laundry. Other days I recognize that laundry is a fairly huge accomplishment and if that turns out to be the case I should be proud anyway. I'm afraid of early-onset dementia. I'm afraid I'll grow more and more uncomfortable in crowds and one day decide never to leave the house again. I'm afraid of failing my kids in a million ordinary ways. But spiders I've made peace with. They decorate the front porch with their webs, they eat flies and mosquitoes. They're quiet neighbors. The spiders can stay.
~a

Feet

2010-08-22T18:35:00.005-04:00

When T was little, one of the cutest parts about him were those two small pudgy feet. We constantly marveled at the notion that they were just like ours, but miniature. When he was first born and sleeping in his vibrating seat (often the only way to get him to go to sleep) we would hold one in our hands and gaze at it in wonder. As he grew, so did they. For a time our feet were roughly the same size. If he needed to take a dog on a quick spin around the yard, he inevitably slipped on my galoshes. This past year he has grown at an alarming rate, and so have his feet. They have surpassed mine, and his curls tower over my own. Somehow I've become the shortest member of our household, a position I didn't think I'd hold for another couple of years. Oh how he adores putting his arm around me and reminding me of our height difference. Believe it or not, his feet have almost surpassed M's. I'm certain one day they will stop growing, but who can say when that will be. No matter that they leave deep tracks in the sand or large mud prints in the house, they give him such a strong foundation and provide a solid base for a steadily growing boy. Hopefully we've also helped him to learn that putting one foot in front of the other can take you wherever you wish to go.
~b

Baby feet never look capable of any of those activities we take for granted when we are old – walking, dancing, standing on tiptoe. They're more like soft stumps that need to be kept warm, delicate peas for toes, smooth purply skin that's never seen the inside of a shoe. Bizarre alien appendages that require frequent kisses. Of all the strange parts on babies, feet might be the strangest. These feet belong to the new baby of my oldest friend. Someday H and I will describe what our boys are up to during our annual visit – she and I have a friendship that lies dormant beneath the surface of daily life and blooms like desert flowers in a yearly rain. Someday she and I will share a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and describe how happy we are that our boys are at college/in Europe/married/having babies and then we might fall quiet and feel sad, the tiniest bit sad, that those baby feet have carried our babies so far away from us. But mostly we will be happy at our amazing good fortune, that we made healthy children with strong feet, that we are still friends after so many years. That we are full and giggly from ice cream, like we used to be so often in the sixth grade. Here's to the years ahead.
~a