festivities

For the first ever we're actually doing it up right for Halloween with some serious pumpkin carving the day of with friends and neighbors. I'm a little terrified about what my kitchen might look like post pumpkin massacre, but totally into the idea of having a bunch of rascals running around while parents attempt masterpieces with the aid of sharp implements and choice beverages. How can that not be fun? I'll totally be taking pictures.

We've starting cookie baking early this year too, and are attempting a haunted gingerbread house (you can download a PDF of the no-frills pattern I made here.) Because as Bean put it, it's just too long to wait until Christmas, and because baking cookies is one of my coping strategies of late. Grin.

+++ Some links I've been wanting to share:

I want to live here. Oh yes.

Misty Mawn's photos are giving me a serious case of wanderlust.

Brian's mix on 8tracks.

Doing this is so on my bucket list.

This set of autumn photos.

What are you up to for the weekend?

scraps and bits

It's late. It is that time of night where the house hums in the quiet, and outside the moon, full and round and up till morning, is obscured by the clouds that came in the evening. It is that time of night where my mind becomes perforated and shallow; where what I'm working on dissolves like sugar in the bottom of a cup of tea.

It's been such a non-stop week, I haven't felt like there were ever minutes really where I could come up for air until today when Lizardek came for a visit, all the way from Boston, all the way from Sweden. Liz. What can I say? She and her mom filled up my home with smiles today. We went to an ice cream factory. The blue sky sang bluer. The yellow leaves lingering on the hills hued to gold. Such a fun day; also because Bean and I got to hang together, and I've been loving these times we've been having: just the two of us. He's a different kid when he's by himself. All kids are, I suppose. But I particularly like spending time with him when we're going someplace and chattering together. On the way home from our adventures today after two ice cream cones, he passed out in the car, chocolate still on his cheeks. Looking back at him I could feel my heart thudding hard in my throat. His eyelids transparent almost; his sandy hair falling slantwise across his dreaming face.

It's amazing, again and again, to find myself in the identity of being somebody's mother. It's a form that constantly shifts and sheds; like the fragile skin of a snake. I grow as they do.

+++

Some scraps of exciting news:

Milk & Ink: A Mosaic Of Motherhood is out! It's jam-packed with amazing writers--many of the pieces moved me to tears with the sheer beauty of the language, and poignancy of story. I've contributed three pieces to this collection and feel so lucky to be a part of it! All profits are going to Mama Hope--which makes this an even more most buy, must read book. Go get your copy!

I've started a new weekly column over at Today's Mama chronicling some of the nitty-gritty bits of being in grad school full time as a parent. Fun stuff.

Some musings about the future of digital media and culture here. (This is where my head is when it's not here.)

A list for Saturday

Today: wood stacking and striking skies. The hills are dappled with sun and shade. My boys want to be outdoors all day, their noses running, always heading for the mud, always climbing to the top of unstacked piles of logs.

I'm still getting over being sick--and contemplating the affects of it on my digital and academic life over here. (I'd loove to hear your thoughts on this subject.)

Today there will be chocolate chip cookies and chicken soup and rosy cheeks. There will also be reading. Lots of it. And figuring out how to do a podcast for A Field Guide To Now (!) and maybe a run. Yes. That's Saturday's list. What is yours?

Also: we're entering the phase of toddler temper tantrums around here. Oooh boy. Here we go. More on that and some pictures tomorrow.

the things that show time's passing:

I spend the day between here and myself.

Outside the trees are turning to vermillion three weeks early and in the evenings the mountains are on flame; the sky purple dark and sudden light the way only a New England sky can be. I spend the day in a state of almost perpetual creative activity and it’s crazy and intense and thrilling. If I could chart the synapse activity in my mind these past five weeks it has skyrocketed. Each idea leading to sequential sparks, my mind like the starry sky when you look up after twirling: blur of streaking gold and dark.

It is inconceivable, almost, how fast the days go. How fast autumn light is gaining. The equinox slipped by like something leaving silently through the closing door of summer. I look now and wonder at how fast time has gone, while all around me there are marks to show it’s passing:

T and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary this past weekend (and our eleventh together) returning to the place where we were married for a marvelous meal. We were married outdoors on a little peninsula reaching out into the lake, and over the weekend we walked back there in awe by the way our lives are now. “Did you ever think?” I asked. He shook his head.

I was pregnant then, with Sprout.

How things have changed.

Do you know that when I started this blog I didn’t know a single “real life” person who had ever even heard of a blog? Little did I know how it would change my life. And it has—wild as that may sound. It has submerged me in the world of digital media where I feel compelled and creative and at home; and it has given me community and audience and escape and reassurance. This week I’ll likely hit the 1000th post mark. (This is the 992st post)…and there are 11,854 comments logged on this site. Pretty awesome.

Since that time blogs and digital media and the internet have changed so much; facebook and twitter and commercial blogging have reshaped the face of personal blogs in many ways—but I’m still so happy to come here. So grateful for your comments, for your shared pieces of existence, for your tips on good music, good food, good books, good ideas, and good ways to solve problems with two little rapscallion boys.

Time is galloping. The garden is scraggly with weeds, plush with overripe tomatoes; overrun with squash. The geese are back, cutting the skies in Vs, and the starlings and blackbirds have arrived in throngs on the wires of the telephone poles I photograph daily now as a part of a daily artistic practice. Tonight I am tackling HTML and CSS (another thing on my 33 before 33 list) and listening to new favorite mixes on 8tracks, and feeling like while time is slipping, it is the best time I’ve ever had. All of it, all my life: the best time. Do you ever feel that way?

What are five things you are grateful for right now?

snapshots like sunspots

From the past week:

1.

Frustration the color of crushed grapes; my fingers in my palms. We’re at a stand off: my five year old and I. He wants to do one thing, I’ve given him a choice of two others. It was like this when he was a baby. People said, “just let him cry it out,” but when we did, a single time, he cried for an hour, then fell asleep but woke up angry, remembering everything. Now his eyes are puffy with tears and allergies and I’ve had far too little time to myself, and far too many deadlines to make time now for this push and pull. I scream. SCREAM at him. I am ashamed, heartbroken. I want to snip through everything I’ve done with a small pair of embroidery scissors, thread after indelicate thread until I get back to the place where our hearts are close and our cheeks touch.

I hate you, Mommy. I hate you he screams.

Nothing prepared me for this. For the way I would feel like I had ruined everything. Like being broken up with, but irreparably worse. (Thank god we have a few more years before he is a teenager to figure things out...)

Finally I backed down. He played outdoors. We skirted each other ashamed by the mess we’d made of things. At bedtime he asked for Daddy to read to him, and slipped by my studio door without coming to goodnight.

2. T carries him into the bedroom before I am awake. The feeling of his bird like shoulder blades; the hull of his delicate ribs; the haphazard placement of his marionette arms against my neck, wakes me. I love you Mommy. I love you so much.

I love you too. I love you. I love you. I whisper back. His elbow makes an upside down V along the line of my chin. I press my nose into his neck where it smells forever just like him: like cookies and grass and autumn air, and slip a little towards a softer sleep.

3. We're downtown at a street festival and he stands watching the fire throwers, just like his dad, hands in pockets, one knee bent, transfixed. I leave the two of them watching and walk with Sprout and my mother to the Capitol green, where my littlest runs like he has something to prove. (He does: joy is everywhere.) His face beams. He climbs every set of stairs he can finds. He stops to smell every single flower; stroking the plush purple petals of the petunias as though they are the source of joy. (They are.)

4. My little one. He is the still point at the center of my heart, and a twirling dervish that colors my heart with of comfort. He is curls and sticky fingers and sweat on his brow and newly found independence and tantrums. He is laughter with juice running down his chin. He carries crushed gingersnap cookies in his fist and grins.

5. I can see them walking towards us across the green grass, both wearing yellow, like sunshine flooding towards me. They walk in synch and they are grinning: they’ve gotten lemonade and a new hat and gloves for him for winter, and they are almost one and the same, those two foreign bits of my heart.

6. The light is golden and the hills are purple and flame. The leaves have begun to turn to orange; tattered yellow; ocher. The grass is dewy now and strewn with the tree’s spent energy of a season.

Light refracts like fire in what remains.

Lovely things

Hello. Here are a couple glimpses from around our house today. My new studio, in our former third bedroom, is almost done. T is building a glorious built-in very simple, extra long desk for me along two walls. Finally, for the first time in my life I'll have enough space to write and do art....to spread a chapter out, or to leave a painting in progress and not have it compete for space. It's also the first time that I'll ever have a studio that isn't also doubling as a guest bedroom (T's former home office will become that space...) I am thrilled. Thrilled about having a space that is calm and pretty and mine all mine.

I can't help but feel a little outnumbered sometimes around here...as the only girl among all these loud boys (except for the cat!) I've just had this conversation with Bean who dashed pell-mell into the bathroom this morning, interrupting me as I was attending to a few stray eyebrow hairs:

"Hey little man, you can't come into the bathroom when Mommy's in it unless you're either bleeding or vomiting from now on, okay?"

"Why?"

"Because Mommy is a girl and girls totally deserve uninterrupted bathroom time."

"Why?"

"Hmmm... BECAUSE I SAID SO."

Oh yes I did.

(His drawing above is of "plans" for crane that can work at night and has multiple hooks.)

While T has was sanding and painting and hammering away upstairs, I spent the morning de-stoning little local sour cherries to make some sort of delight. I made the recipe up, and it's just divine:

For the crust: A little more than 2 cups flour (I used a cup of fresh ground whole wheat--that is a bit coarse and nutty and oh, so delicious) About 1 1/2 sticks butter. About 2 tablespoons cold water (You might need more if it's not 90 percent humidity!)

For the filling: Almost a quart of sour cherries, de-stoned About 1/4 cup sugar 2 tablespoons corn starch

I spread the dough into the pie plate without rolling it out first--because of the whole grain flour it was very crumbly and broke easily. After filling with cherries I folded the extra crust over the top and baked it at 425 for the first 20 minutes or so, and then at 375 for an additional half hour. Scrumptious. Bubbly. So good. I'm guessing it will be even better for breakfast *wink.*

Lastly, I just wanted to tell you that your comments on my last post absolutely filled me up with joy. Thank you. It's a beginning of so many things that are new and tenuous and optimistic.

xoxo! C

Fishing at home

I discovered a blog this past week that I am absolutely smitten with, that has made all the difference this week in terms surviving summer and having some fun while we’re at it. It’s by a dad, Joel, who is also a designer, artist, crafter, and kid-toy-making genius.

Using Joel’s design as inspiration I sent my husband and Bean out to the garage one morning (while Sprout napped and I snatched an hour or two of writing time) to make a pole using one of the many sticks he has managed to collect.

Side note: have you noticed this about boys? How they seem to have a perpetual thing for sticks. How it’s almost innate, the desire to pick up sticks and wield them about as swords or javelins or flags or walking sticks? Also rocks. My boys, both of them, have this inherent love of gathering rocks, throwing rocks in water, collecting them, kicking them, stowing them in pockets (alas, so many end up in my washer.)...more.

Preoccupied

I want to show up here again, with a open heart and the hundreds of stories that have been piling up; soon maybe. For now, my cards are close to my chest still and my fingers crossed; I'm feeling everything: delight, anxiety, wonder, hope; and I"m grateful for summer sunshine and berry season.

Also we've been undergoing a major redecoration/reshuffling of bedrooms. A peak at the boy's new bedroom:

(I am so loving them in matching jammies...)

Also: Tell me, what do you do to ground yourself when faced with uncertainty?

Sweetness

The last few posts have been so moody and somber...but all kinds of lovely has been happening too: sunshine and a warm wind; chalk drawings and skateboarding in the garage; meandering walks down to the pond; homemade pizza with friends.

And today: a trip to the farmer's market, just Bean & me..to meet my lovely friend & her little boy. A cinnamon danish; boys on bikes; exploring by the lakefront; sunburn; an old-fashioned root beer float.

I can't quite describe how lovely it was to hang out with just my big boy. I hardly ever get Bean one-on-one these day's and he's so charming and smart and articulate and full of mischief.

When we came home we spent another few hours out doors with T and Sprout planting shrubs and building a trellis using saplings (can't wait to show you pictures.) Bean loved dragging the saplings down from the woods after T cut them down, and Sprout was pleased as punch to take up occupancy in the holes we dug for the shrubs.

Tomorrow, a laid back Father's Day (will share the super simple + sweet project Bean & I worked on!) with more outdoor projects planned (unless it rains...)

(More on how the first week of summer vacation went here.)

evening|summer

As the sky grows dark, the twilight feels heavy like velvet, and sweet like licorice. Fireflies come out, and Venus too, above us blinking from among the pink and pale indigo of heaven. So far up, she twirls, casts off the sun’s bright light, and sends it back to us like a love letter; a secret message.

It's nearly dark and maybe we all make wishes looking up. We see fading contrails; the sky turning to night.

Bats swoop as we gather around the fire with marshmallows on hand-carved sticks; the boys run laps around the house then ask for seconds, thirds, their faces sticky sweet. Sprout eats corn off the cob, then goes docilely to bed, his hair smelling like vanilla and wood smoke; his arm hooked around my neck, a small piece of heaven.

We eat until we’re full then lull; find conversation; lull again. There are kebabs with pineapple and purple onions; fresh corn with butter; grilled nan; steak.; brownies for dessert; wine.

The kids head indoors and their laughter floats through the open window and yellow light spills each rectangle onto the bluing lawn.

I spill wine on my jeans, my feet are grass stained, the boys are covered with dirt and it is perfect. Guitar fills the night air with lilting notes; our faces are light by flame, thrushes call until the sun's long gone.

It’s summertime. Here, this, finally.

The way things go + some current crushes

Hi! I have so many things I want to share with you today. First, some crushes:

These luminous folder icons have completely revamped my desktop and seriously upped both my cool factor and organization.

These fabulous planers are also rocking my organizational world. I am so not an organized girl when it comes to creative projects. I see BIG PICTURE and details sometimes get sidelined. This in particular has really helped me to narrow my focus and get things done.

And I've been wanting to share this glorious camera bag that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago (I was the Shutter Sister's giveaway winner) and oh man... I can't even begin to tell you how lovely and awesome it is. It's big enough to fit my camera and everything else I schlep around, and pretty enough to make me look put together even when I'm not. (THANK YOU Maile!!)

These photos (swoon) and this blog.

Some news:

I was interviewed here and here this past week by two of the most amazing, inspiring women in the blogosphere.

Last night I put some new prints up in my little shop!

And at this moment: the weather is all over the map still. Rain, sun, wind, rain.

Everything is exuberantly green in the same way that kids color the grass in their pictures: GREEN EVERYWHERE. And while I love what green stands for (summertime picnics, gardening, bike rides, bonfires) I wish the apple blossoms could stay longer. In a single afternoon they exploded into full bloom with bees everywhere, each tree its own secret universe of pollen and petals, and then today, just a few days later, there are already as many petals on the grass as on the trees. So fleeting. So fleeting. Everything is this.

We hung out with the very first friend we made here last night. He was sitting on the porch across from our new apartment as we backed over the curb repeatedly with an enormous moving truck. I remember feeling utterly out of place among the scads of college kids with 7 month old Bean in tow and actual real furniture instead of futons, but M. walked over and said hello, and Bean thought he was the coolest person ever and we've been friends since. Now Bean is five and M. is moving to Austria for an unbelievably awesome job, and wow. Time. There it went.

There is no more of a tangible way to notice time's passing than to watch a child grow. This, and then this. SO FAST. I'm carrying on about this today because I get it this time. I get that these moments right now are the ones I'm going to look back on and say, oh, that was when it started. That's when we had no idea. (Sprout is still small-ish, but the next time I stop to think about it he'll likely be riding a bike. )

I've gotten the most wonderful emails from some of you about being at similar points of transition--and I so love them. I think it is incredibly helpful to tell each other these stories about how things begin. About the moments before beginning when all we're doing is imagining and waiting and things feel scary and at large (because they kind of are.)I want to hear more about these moments in your lives. What is beginning right now? What are you on the brink of?

A weather gestalt

This is the view from the back yard today:

This was yesterday:

Ack.

the blue yonder

My last post sounded pretty dire, didn't it? I didn't mean for it to. It was the result of too many days back to back of intense writing until 2AM in combination with a massive to-do list and a heap of uncertainty that brought out my most fragile, anxious self. But the truth is: this is a really exciting time for us! We're poised on the brink of reinvention, and neither of us really know what that will look like, but it will most certainly will include adventure, and learning new things, and redefining what matters, and the prospect of this makes me joyful.

In so many ways we've done things backwards from our friends and peers. We had kids first and made this place home before we we were thirty. Now we've got these two awesome kids and a whole universe of possibility and zero money and a heap of adventures just waiting to be had. I"m not just saying this. I am really (finally) at a place of throwing my arms wide open to the universe, ready to leap into the wild blue yonder; full of hope and abundance.

It's been an interesting process getting to here. When we first found this house, I was terrified of making a Home. Terrified of putting down roots and having something stake a claim on my soul the way I knew this place would. I've always said: what else? What if? When? I've always wanted the option of going, of travel, of doing something different. I've always, at the end of the day been a girl with a wanderlust affliction.

Now that I know who my kids are, and what they're like as little people in the world....I can imagine living other places with them. We're a pretty cool family unit, the four of us. T and I (despite his laundry neglect) work as a team almost seamlessly, and I've never had any one in my life who is more of a champion of my writing or a bigger fan of my art than he is.... We don't require a lot when it's all said and done, and if there is one thing that's true, it's our shared love for learning new things.

So.

Maybe.

Maybe anything at all. Maybe we'll stay here. Maybe we'll head to somewhere else. T. is excited by the prospect of different work in a way I could never have imagined him to be. It's like a weight has been lifted from him: and he's full of determination and enthusiasm, and we're all keeping our fingers crossed. (Cross your fingers too, will you?) Have you ever reinvented yourself? Changed an outlook, a job, a lifestyle, a location.

Also: A Field Guide To Now is becoming it's own adventure. It's SO CLOSE. Please help to make the funding happen (remember, it's all or nothing). I have a question for you about the book: what would you be drawn to more? A straight-up illustrated essay collection, or a book that also offers some little invitations to you about ways to be an explorer in the moments of your life, right now as it is? It would be so helpful to hear your thoughts about this!

a different kind of validation:

"Oh,"  T. said yesterday as we were both stumbling over the HEAPS of laundry on the floor upstairs, "I guess you actually really DO a lot of laundry." YES. Yes I do. (And it's been a point of contention, I might add.)

But this week: not so much. In fact not at all actually. And it SHOWS. Our house looks like a bomb was detonated somewhere in the vicinity. Housework has dropped off the very bottom of the to-do list, to be returned to sometime when this proposal is done, and life returns to normal speed.

By then I may have a hunchback (I have discovered I have terrible desk posture) and my family might have been devoured by mutant laundry heaps. Alas. (Or T. could just do the laundry. Perhaps he will?) (A confession: I love every single minute of this bleary-eyed, up till 2am, creative, messy process.)

Small perfect things

Things I want to remember about the weekend:

Sounds: the exquisite laughter and glee of the under six set at discovering plastic colored eggs strewn about our friend's back yard; the peepers trilling, bumble bees, bellies fat, new from sleeping in the mud buzzing around beside our picnic blanket; the evening wind rushing up the valley.

Sights: pink hair bows and Easter dresses on our friend's little girls; Bean in his favorite plaid button down, baskets brimming with colored eggs, kids on the swing sets their hair flying back, watermelon smiles, new buds on the trees, the return of the indigo buntings by the pond,

Moments: playing in the sandbox after dinner, playing guitar + laughing with friends up from Boston after dinner; a walk to the pond, barefoot across the squishy grass; looking out the window at Bean and T sitting side by side on a rock eating peanut butter and jelly from jars with spoons (their version of picnic heaven)

Sensations: wearing messy braids, 80 degree sunshine, bare feet on mud; rubbing sunscreen onto little boy cheeks, running hard 3 miles, sunburn (everyone was pink last night).

Food: prosciutto + cantaloupe, grilled lamb + tadziki, coconut cupcakes, iced lattes, Circus Boy, valpolicella, dark chocolate.

Monday glimpses

The house was surrounded by fog today and the ambiguous weather of almost spring. We went for a walk; picked pussy-willows with dew-damp fuzz and rubbed them against our cheeks. Soft. Softer. The sky and the hills blended, things became smudged: now, tomorrow, what we hope for, whatever else we are beyond this day. Things became silhouettes of themselves: telephone poles, pigeons perched on wires, rooftops, the details blurred with moisture. The trees wore necklaces of water drops. Bean splashed in every puddle. I splashed in every puddle. Sprout wanted to get his hands in things: in the mud, in the wet grass, in the sky. He kept reaching up, clapping. The sky was white on white.

Down by the pond all four of us watched rocks break through the last thin slips of ice floating at the surface. Ice that looked like cellophane. It’s a favorite thing, always, for anyone near water: to throw rocks. To pick up a hunk of quartz and let it fly. Sprout squealed with delight. DH was reluctant to share his best rocks with Bean who teetered thisclose to the edge, among the stubble of last years cattails, his slender arms snaking out away from his body awkwardly with each triumphant toss.

So this was today: fog, and writing, and small boys under foot (an unusual Monday. Bean’s school was closed for in-service.) It was a day of corn tortillas with beans and melted cheese, and making paper tails (which we all gleefully wore) and fighting off a slew of tail attacking pirates with wooden swords and lots of shrieking. Miraculously, it was also a day of semi productivity. A few paragraphs written, edited, the boys occupied with large squares of newsprint and six dozen crayons (now strewn everywhere imaginable.)

So what if things are up in the air; in the end they always are, and this, this is my life. Boys. Writing. Sneaking kisses in the foyer while pulling on coats. Collecting blue and brown eggs from under the warm feathered bodies of hens. And taking a walk, all of us, to the pond and back, stopping a hundred times to look at the world. To be astounded by the water rushing everywhere, the puddles, the catkins, the mud.

It’s easy to forget today. It’s easy to think in terms of what didn’t get done (that list is always so long.)

What are five small things from your day?

The way laundry gets done around here:

Can you hear Bean accompanying his play in the background with a little off-tune song? I LOVE it when they're both occupied like this. Bean was building train tracks and castles with wooden blocks under the dining room table...and Sprout: the minute he sees a heap of fresh laundry he's on it. POUNCE. He played like that for oh, twenty minutes easily. Perhaps not the most efficient (or clean) way to get the laundry folded...but hey, when it affords time to hang out and sip coffee in the sunshine and get through my inbox, I'm okay with it.

In fact, I've discovered that I might have exceedingly low standards about the way things should be done around here, in terms of housework. DH does to, so there isn't a lot of strife in our house about such things (except, ironically, for the laundry--he never puts his away! Like EVER. Whyyyyy???) And we're both generally okay with letting things build up, and then cleaning them together...The dishes, for example, might wait all day if there are better things to be done. (Like essays to be written for example.) How do the daily things get done at your house?

Sugaring

Sugaring with the neighbors yesterday. I love their old-school, hand made set up. I love the sweet clouds of steam, and how everything feels hopeful and grand standing around the evaporator watching the sap bubble and thicken. Hours pass, easily, occupied this way. Bean was all helper this year. Carrying wood. Pouring sap from the metal tap buckets into the big plastic five gallon bucket to be filtered and poured. He even got to strike the match to light the fire up. This is his boyhood. This is what he will remember. This is why we are here, even though things are so tenuous financially right now that at any moment we might slip, and have to leave. So. This is why I'm throwing my heart into trying to make A Field Guide To Now. This is why there is a lump in my throat at night, when I can see how it might not reach that stupid enormous funding goal (that also feels so small.)

Last year ate our savings. Last year ate everything. This year, who knows? This year, the outcome is anyone's guess. We could move. We could stay. It's all up in the air, illusive as the steam, as tender as the first fat buds.

So that's the truth. I want this life more than anything.

Also: You can win this painting.

hello, Monday

Beneath the covers when the day first sets in, I’m not quite here, not quite anywhere else either. Hello, Monday. It’s already 6:03 and the night was a slapdash mess of wake ups. The teeth, they keep coming. Arched back wailing at 3:27a.m. for ten stagger-around-the-room minutes, searching for Tylenol, and then again at 5:06, too early and too late for more or better sleep.

I lie awake, face in the pillows, the thudding of my heart reverberates in my head. My breath moves my ribs up and down, up and down, but I am not here, not all of me, not yet.

Under the weight and softness of my stomach my wrist bones, carpals and metacarpals, are crumpled like soft bits of clay and as I flex my fingers, pins-and-needles set in.

Somehow our boys, both of them, are already in bed between us.

This morning I can feel the way I’m sort of pushing around at the outline of myself with my mind. Hello, day. Hello, memory. Hello, this life of mine. I feel myself begin, reluctantly to inhabit my vertebrae, lungs, buttocks, thighs; in the nick of time I roll out of the way. Bean’s at it already: making a pirate ship out of the covers. Sprout, miraculously stays asleep (of course, now after a night of it) and he is perfect, perfect, perfect here beside me. Rosy, tousled. His hair smells sweet like only him.

The day comes fast then: wooden slats of window shades pulled up; snowmelt; shower steam; the fragrant bar of French lemon soap slipping from my still slack-fingered grip; coffee. The boys are both underfoot (vacation until Wednesday) which gives new meaning to the phrase “work from home,” which is what I try valiantly to do, meeting four deadlines, non-stop screen time, CS4, phone calls, 37 emails, everything interrupted by the repetitive cacophony of BOY.

The day is gray, and the is light translucent and dull, but I like the way the thermometer climbs to 38 before 11am, and how on the south facing fields I can see bare patches where the grass pokes up. I’ve been looking at the trees for signs every day now: the buds are swelling with the secret lives of leaves that wait for chlorophyll, for sun.

Inside, the boys and I are barefoot, and I look at them and feel the fragile container of my ribs nearly snap open with the thunk-thunk-thunking of my little hammer dulcimer heart. Bean with his thin arms and messy hair and growing-in-crooked teeth and ski-jump nose, and Sprout, who has been trying to run from the minute he learned to walk and whose gait looks a wee bit like a cross between a high stepping horse and Frankenstein. Some days I hardly have words. I have two sons. I don’t think this wonder ever goes away.

And so without stopping it’s night already. We visit friends after work and arrive home late. The sink is crowded; the cat wants fresh water; the refrigerator needs to be cleaned. Instead I let the boys stay up another minute. Bean and I eat toast with cloudberry jam.  Sprout carries pot lids around the room. Nonstop, there went Monday.

How was your day?

PS--I have a super-duper exciting giveaway for tomorrow, that I can’t wait to share!

PPS--Did you see? I made some pretty Field Guide To Now blog buttons. Please grab one, if you'd like & spread the word. 30% funding tonight is awesome. Who want's to be the one to push it to 3K? Just $35 away...THANK YOU Tahereh! What a great way to start TUESDAY.