House work
In a new book by William Stafford that I picked up on my artist date last week I read: “…The process of writing is kind of a trusting to the nowness, to the immediacy of the experience. And if you enter into the artistic endeavor with standards, already arrived-at ideas of what you want to do, you’re not entering creatively into the immediacy of encountering the materials.†Tonight, using a crowbar to pull up section after section of linoleum, I thought about how this is true for work and art both. Always, when I work with my hands, I find myself right here, in the moment. My mind grows steady, in tandem with my hands.
When I let it, the work becomes a meditation. I find the right question in the nowness of the experience. The bare simplicity of wood and wall, of metal and adhesive define a narrative; clarify the answer.
When I was a teenager my father taught me how to use sledge hammer and ax; and also how to true a line, plumb a sink, and wire an outlet. Now, when I am working with my hands, he always feels nearby. He was the kind of man who could fix carburetor or a motherboard. He understood electrical wiring, and architecture; these were the hobbies he chose to stay grounded in a life full of spiritual pondering.
I feel lucky to be able to share this kind of work with the men of my life. Then, with my father. Now, with my husband, who is in every way exactly opposite from the exacting craftsman that my father was, but just as able with his hands.
Where words sometimes leave DH and I tangled when we try to talk about what we imagine for the house, working side by side is something we do well. This is our second renovation project, and together we own many tools.
We destroyed the last of the old kitchen cabinets today, throwing them into the huge metal dumpster we’ve rented. DH leaned up against the garage door, cheering as I swung the sledge hammer into the wood. The each crack echoed a little in of our quiet valley, where the only sounds were a few nuthatches calling from the tops of birch trees.
It felt good to wield an 8lb hammer. The hear the crack of the wood, to make it splinter. And it felt good to look up and see DH smiling, his face framed in dark tousled hair, backlit by the setting sun slipping over the edge of the hill the is now ours.
seed heads in a snowy meadow
ice from the spring water cistern in the field below the house
the woods at the edge of the upper field
the branches of an heirloom apple tree
spring cistern
our house, seen from the meadow below
Pickup truck prose
Rain is falling today. The cat feels the change in temperature, and meows restlessly at the door. The snow is melting. The gutters are rife with slush and garbage. The clouds press close to the pavement, hugging the curves of the road and nestling into the valleys.
We spent the morning in the car, driving to the capitol check out a used pickup truck DH has been eyeing. Right now we’re a one-car family, but with the house closing coming up in a couple of days we’re going to start needing a truck to haul drywall and refuse. It makes sense up here, where the snow falls often in the winter and our driveway is long, to be able to plow it ourselves or haul wood.
Growing up my, my dad always had a truck. It was a 1969 Ford Ranger Camper Series Pickup with a long bed and a stick shift that was connected to the steering wheel. The seats were maroon, and the steering wheel wrapped with leather. I learned to drive in that truck—and steering it felt like maneuvering a boat. Whichever way you turned the wheel, ever-so-slightly, the whole truck went. In the winter we’d put concrete blocks in the back to improve traction.
My father was already sick when he sold it, though at the time he was still in denial about having cancer.
“I sold the pickup today,†he told me. “There were a number of calls, and the first man to come out made a deposit on it, and is bringing the rest of the money tomorrow morning.â€
“Really?†I said with a smile, remembering countless adventures in the truck my mother had nick-named Bessie.
“Yes,†he said with a little laugh. “It will almost be like having one of our daughters leaving home. I’ve had that old girl longer than any of you girls!â€
“It’s true,†I said. Then waited, as his pain interrupted us, and his voice grew taught and shallow.
“That’s all I can do now,†he said.
The truck we looked at today is also a Ford. Dark red, with all the plushness of modernity: power lock windows, airbags, antilock breaks. We make a plan to come back to haggle over the price after we've research its blue book costs, and then drive back along the rain-slick highway.
I notice a lone crow on the high branches of a bare tree. The road is often obscured with fog. I grow pensive. Right now my life is abundant with firsts. Each day Bean makes another discovery: yesterday he took his first wild wobbling steps towards me away from the couch he’d been holding on to. Now there is a lump in my throat and I catch myself wondering what it is like to be at the end of one’s life, to have each day filled with lasts.
I wonder if my father thought about the last time he drove. About the last time he walked. And then there were those days where each time he awoke, he must have contemplated the awe of waking, and wondered when he would not.
It always catches me off guard when I find memories of my father occupying my mind in the vivid way that they are today. I’ve grown used to not having him around, and recently my life has been so abundant with other things I don’t stop to contemplate the emptiness I sometimes feel.
***
Even in great sorrow your eyes are like a pair of darting bluebirds, across a stormy summer sky. Two bright flecks of all that has come before and will return, to the eternal clockwork of the earth.
Right now you seem like the edges of a lake in early spring, ice turning black and hollow waiting for the shuddering crush of a turtle’s first foot print; the rising of water levels; the tug of vernal currents; life that surely follows winter’s shallow death.
The texture of moments on a winter hike
Bright winter sunlight like a pitcher of lemonade spread across the morning sky. Today was one of those days where each moment was saturated with goodness. A long nap with Bean curled in the nook of my arm, my nose pressed into the softness of his hair. Pad thai at the local noodle shop with painted paper umbrellas hanging from the ceiling and pink plastic chopsticks. A hike up a small mountain in late afternoon. The land around rubbed flat ages ago by a glacier. Tall black pine silhouettes and the sun setting into a ragged cloud line, like someone’s white laundry hung out to dry after being washed with a lone red sock.
We passed two old men sitting on mono skis, taking a rest shooting the breeze in the middle of the trail while their dogs sniffed the tell tale yellow signatures that marked snow banks. A dad and his son on a sled shot by us like a rocket, the grin on his kid’s face spreading out into the whizzing air around his head.
The moon was so milky and almost full on our way back down the trail that our figures cast pale shadows on the ground, our bodies backlit. Bean in the backpack sang the whole time and stuck his tongue out inquisitively into the cold air. His cheeks like cherry stains, ruddy and round, tucked into the hood of his snowsuit.
Heading towards home we stopped at a coffee shop to eat nutty carrot cake and cappuccinos, and the warmth of the cup made my hands tingle.
setting sun
me & the Bean
moon tree
underbrush
twilight over the valley
New Jersey landscape on the day before the last day of the year
Yesterday afternoon we walked through the fields where George Washington and his troops once faught. We watched thousands of birds fly pell mell through the sky, alighting in a swirling vortex of black wings on the stubble of mowed-under corn. We walked hand in hand with the setting sun on our faces, staring in wonder at the tall old trees that have grown since the time when America was just earning it's independence. I treasure these moments of us outdoors laughing in the twilight like pieces of prized seaglass. What a way to end a year.
Bittersweet market
The bitter sweetness of the day began while parking the car in at the Italian market in Philadelphia. DH got a call from the real estate agent. The house closing which was slated for next week has been put off—for weeks possibly---because the sellers don’t want to be inconvenienced. I tried to let the news settle as I looked out the window at people passing: a lady with strawberry blonde hair and a boy in a baby stroller; an old black woman with beautiful eyes, burgundy lipstick and misconfigured teeth; two Italian men both wearing dark wool coats and laughing. And it all seemed suddenly bland. A hard pit of disappointment pressed up against my solar plexus. I unbuckled Bean and scooped him out of his car seat. I walked a block back and forth waiting for DH to call the sellers to try and renegotiate the date, but came back negative. The seller said she doesn’t want to be inconvenienced. SHE DOESN’T WANT TO BE INCONVENIENCED. Really. Who says that when they’re trying to sell a house? Who? Tense and deflated I snapped at DH in front of the in laws right inside the door of a bustling café where everyone was ordering up lattes and cannolis. With even poorer form, I passed Bean to DH and walked out of the café. I hate it when I’m like that. But sometimes all the racket of this little clan of concerned family makes this worse, not better.
Again I walked up and down the block, past pigs heads hanging in the window with their eyeballs stuck open, the upside down pheasants with their feathers still intact, and the crates full of chard and tomatoes and fava beans. I couldn’t quite get a grip on myself. I wanted to be angry at DH for being tense—but I knew I was being just as tense. I wanted to be angry at DH for having a strained interaction in front of his parents, but I knew I’d caused the interaction. Feeling belly up and angry I sat outside the café with my camera trying to find the color and vibrancy I had expected from the day. Within minutes joined me, and after batting words around for awhile I was able to articulate my fear: what if we loose the house entirely? He heard me and cupped his fingers over mine.
Trying to soak up a city in a leisurely manner with seven people is a ludicrous expectation. Just finding a restaurant took walking back and forth the length of the same block several times and much hemming and hawing. Finally we ate at bistro where the waiter also seemed to be the cook and the host. The pepper and sausage sandwiches were fair at best, but the mood loosened as Bean sucked down linguini and rubbed sauce onto the tablecloth. After the meal we walked the length of the market, poking into spice shops and cheese shops, laughing with shopkeepers and eating aged balsamic vinegar with ricotta salata cheese, and espresso.
On the way back the sky broke open just above the city, gold against gray. So beautiful it took my breath away. And yet I couldn’t get a picture through the rearview window because Bean kept grabbing at my lens. I’m still trying to get the hang of this photography stuff. Sometimes the lens picks up something more exquisite than I notice with my bare eye, and other times the image that I see—the whirling of school children playing in a park, or the fire of the sun melting down around the dark silhouettes of buildings—looks washed-out and brittle compared with the way they really are.
Girl on bike.
Looking for upbeat.
Phasants in the window.
Mural of a faroff place.
Self portrait in the car.
Click here for a flickr slideshow of more pictures from today.
Tree pictures
Another 7 hour car trip to New Jersey survived. Forty degree weather, and scads of starlings whirling through the air like synchronized swimmers. Sun over brown fields of cut corn stalks or new subdivisions. Traffic thicker than a swarm of bees. We are here, with family. Bean's doting grandma has already snuck him at least half of his presents. DH and I got to sleep in until ten. And yesterday we picked out a tall tree, haggled for the price and hauled it home on the roof of our car. As usual, I brought my camera. Happy Christmas Eve!
Flocks of wild birds.
Empty greenhouse.
The xmas tree bailer.
Paulo loads the tree onto the car.
At home Zeus brings me a stick.
exhaling
The morning light was flecked with falling snow, and few inches of powder already covered roofs and sidewalks when we woke up. I’ve been waiting for snow, and felt like I could finally exhale, my breath lingering whitely in the air. After a long week of fun-house ups and downs, things felt mostly even today. Bean is has gone and started doing adorable things like waving, and offering me his crackers or orange slices, and my heart starts flapping about all wild and goofy when I watch him trying to stand on his own. I catch myself trying to pin point the exact moment he's gone and gotten older, but I can't quite. It's just a blur of almost toothy grins, as he boogies to the music or chases the cats around.
Finally DH and I had a few moments together too, that didn't involve discussing future house projects, our finances, or our son. We sat around covered in icing and listening to Sinatra’s Christmas classics, decorating gingerbread cookies for the people in our lives with kids in theirs, for the better part of yesterday evening.
Today we bought garlands of balsam and spruce to string up around the apartment, and a wreath for the door, and spontaneously, on our way to pick up the greenery, drove out to the house. The road looked like a storybook, with white frosted trees leaning in on each side and lights gleaming from under a layer of snow, on eaves and barns and tall evergreens. It felt good to just drive by and look. To imagine next year, but to be happy right now, with our car load of greens and our drooly, grinning boy.
self portrait in the car
at the christmas tree lot
on the way to our house
my juicy little guy
gingerbread
lights
Check out more pictures from our day here
Remembering the texture of moments
I'm feeling mostly better today, and tomorrow we're our way back north. Towards our small, busy apartment; towards the unfinished business with the house and work; towards heaps of christmast cards that need mailing and cookies that need baking; towards snow; towards days without the joy and distraction Bean's grandprarents bring to his life. But also towards our morning ritual of a walk downtown and coffee; towards our cat's soft purring; towards friends; towards home. Already the walk along the the canal on Thanksgiving day is just a collection of snapshots. Memory. Autumn, still clinging to tree branches. Canada geese in droves along the edges of the water.
self portrait. windy hair. up close.
concord grapes against concret.
autumn still lingers. leaves like bright flames over water.
a tangle of grass seeds like delicate jewlrey.
bird berries.
burgundy leaves. some small insect's feast.
tree berries. sliver and knobby against dark water.
bird's nest. lonley and dark in the twigs against the sky.
We need...
We're making a run for it: leaving for Princeton early to visit DH's parents--TOMORROW instead of on Wednesday. We need a break: from house hunting, from teething, from early darkness in our too-small apartment, from neighbors. We need some time alone---together. We need some time to poke through shops for presents, to linger over coffee without having it nearly pulled into our laps, to canoodle without whispering. We can't wait to see our dog---who's been on long term vacation with DH's parents because our apartment is too small, and their yard is big and grassy. We can't wait to watch Bean with his grandparents who love him more than breath itself. And of course we're looking forward to stuffing with chestnuts and fresh cranberries and sausage; maple squash; arugula salad with walnuts and apples; turkey; garlicky mashed potatoes; and of course pie. We are big lovers of pie. Tomorrow we will put our final offer in on the house that has a corner of my heart with the frightful wall paper and the land where I can picture abundant gardens and a tree swing for Bean, and then we'll throw our hands up. We'll get snow tires put on the car, and buy snacks for the seven hour drive, and then we'll be off.
Blogging may or may not be limited for the next week. In the meantime, I leave you with a wee photo documentary from today:
Snowsuit weather.
Love is...(taken by DH.)
Up above us.
Still fountain.
Take off, then landing.
Waiting.
In between.
This one I took accidentally. I don't know what it is of, but it fits exactly how I felt all day today.
Car pictures
Took a drive in the late afternoon to see some houses edging the small college town we're into. Still indecisive about buying or building, we met our agent to look at two farmhouses, both too near the road. Strange to walk through other people's rooms, fingering their door knobs, opening their closets. Hanging behind the basement door in the first house was the cleverest little retro tool set. Made for a woman the hammer and screw drivers were small in size with sparkly plastic handles. All the way I kept gulping the landscape up with my eyes. This is why we moved here. This is why we're trying to make it home--despite the long uncertain process of finding what that might look like. I brought the camera, and took a couple shots out the window as the light changed from winter sunlight to dusk, black crows flying up from the fields in flocks, startled.
traffic light
plowed field
dairy farm
yellow house
river bank
sunset
windmill moon
Mohawk grins
Bean is on the mend, it seems. He spent the afternoon flinging CDs off the entertainment center shelves, one at a time, giggling with delight as they crashed in a puddle of plastic cases around him. One little sharp tooth has (finally!) cut through, and the spots are fading...and last night he actually slept for more than two consecutive hours.
Serious
Teeth coming in and a night of very restless sleep. Today pensive. I am blown away, watching my son, at the complexity of his emotional life--at only eight months. He has started anticipating our actions in response to what he sees us looking at. He reads our faces like an emotional roadmap. But today I felt like his mood was all his own, solemn, wanting to be held. A day where the world must have seemed very large to him.
Sunny day
I put Bean in the backpack and went on an urban hike today. We went down along the waterfront, where the old railroad tracks used to be, and along the wetlands where wilderness is reclaiming the pavement. I took pictures and felt heady in all the sun and wind. Bean talked the whole time, cooing and singing, and then slept on the way back. I was so pleased with how some of these turned out, I had to upload them straight here rather than posting them as a slideshow on flickr first.
A view from above.
Graffiti art on the community boathouse.
Dog silhouette.
Lake waves up close.
Once a parking lot.
Bringht sky.
Graffiti art on an abandoned railway car.
Connections.
Migration.
A small sampling of our visit to the farm today.
All in a day's mischief...
My little helper
Yup, he's wearing a biking helmet in the last shot. He didn't even seem to notice it was on his head. We're excited because his head now is large enough for the teeniest, tiniest helmet on the market...which means lovely long rides in the bike trailer on quiet back country roads with mama & daddy for the remaining days of autumn! DH and I have only been able to ride together sporadically for the past 7 months, and it's probably the thing I miss most about our pre-Bean life.
Plout eater
As far as I can gather, plouts are a funky plum+apricot hybrid, and for some reason they are available in my local market--grown locally and organic. Bean loves them, and spends a delightful twenty minutes at a time sucking at the sweet, firm golden flesh.
CORRECTION: Plu-ot. See above post.