Studio Friday: Paytime
I put watercolor paints on a plate and let Bean play. This is what he made. Click on the picture for more photos of us in action.
Self Portrait Tuesday: September Body Part Challenge
His feet, new and soft as cream, just now encountering the downward pull of gravity for the first time. He curls his toes when he nurses, thrusting his feet about in delight. He puts them up high on the handle bar of his stroller, like a lazy teenager with his feet on the dashboard of some too-cool car. And last night, at 3 a.m. he was awake in his crib for awhile, playing chortling to himself softly in the darkness. Then he made a mighty grunt, and pulled himself up into a STAND. Feet quivering, toes down first, and a grin so huge, we could see even in the dark.
The effect that crawling has had on my brain
The boy, he gets into mischief ALL THE TIME. Because our house is small, single storied, and mostly free of hazards, we give Bean more or less free reign of the place, as we go about daily activities. And he loves this. Going from room to room, investigating.
He crawls FAST now. FASTER when he knows we're coming for him when he is say, elbows deep in the cat food bowl, or happily pulling CDs of the entertainment center and throwing them with glorifying crashes onto the floor.
Mostly, it's both awesome and amusing to watch him discover his world. Incredible to observe the finely tuned sequence of brain development that led him first to do exquisite "supermans," then rock back and forth, now crawl. And though he's only been crawling with agility for a week or so, he is already driven to try pulling himself up into the vertical. Kneeling, balancing, and occasionally falling.
I'm filled with wonder watching his brain absorb all the information he gathers about his environment as he explores it: push and pull, gravity, depth, cause and effect, orientation. And I am happy to be able to be here to witness it each day.
But there are times when I miss the full days of teaching other people's children. The business of accomplishing things start to finish. My days are so fragmented now. Things are left started everywhere. Half folded heaps of laundry, a half-edited section of writing for my weekly workshop, a collage partly painted.
I can't help but feel resentment sometimes then, at the way things work out. That DH job affords him six hours of "alone" time, no matter how stressful the market is. Of course we're both compressed at the end of the work day, and of course the "work" isn't done. But for me the compression often doesn't have a release. The day doesn't end until Bean goes to sleep, far longer than even my longest days teaching.
Invariably, exhaustion catches up with him RIGHT when dinner is done. And then I try to remember that being in the moment is what I'm here for. Even when the days fragments gather under my skin like so many shards of glass, as Bean's body curls up against mine, I let his whispered breathing and the sweet scent of his hair settle down around me. I try to allow this to be enough.
A time to eat
In the summer, when the heat pushes in through the screens and the crickets and the traffic and the yelling of kids playing stickball in the street fills the air with soundwaves, I don't cook. The oven makes the house too hot. And usually, I'm not hungry for more than a salad or some grilled corn or pizza anyway.
But come fall, when the skys are sharp and clear with cookie-cutter stamps of clouds--white agains a chilly blue, then it's time for soups, for scones, for bread.
Idiosyncrasies
1. I don't put caps back on things properly. I set them on the tops of jars, but skip the screwing on step. This works fine for me. I've NEVER dropped a jar because of the lid not being screwed in, but my husband and countless roommates over the years have. I also rarely shut cupboard doors. This drives my husband mad.
2. I have really, really long legs compared to my short little torso. Hence, I never have pants that fit quite like I would desire. Sometimes too long, but mostly too short. It doesn't help that I can't be bothered with special dryer settings, or with, god forbid, hanging a special pair of pants over the shower rod. So everything goes on one setting, sometimes to my nicer apparel's chagrin.
3. I can get obsessed with a new favorite food for like, three or four weeks and then can't touch it. Last winter, I loved orange juice. I had it every morning, and every other time I was thirsty practically for about two weeks---even tossing in pineapple-orange, and mango-orange for variety. And then, one day, I couldn't even look at the stuff. Can I just mention how INSANE this made my husband, who kept dutifully buying orange juice for another two months before he realized that there were SIX UNOPENED CARTONS OF O.J. already in the fridge.
4. I like things SWEET. I put 4 raw sugars in a grande latte. I eat honeycomb by the spoonful, and drown my pancakes in maple syrup. That said, I don't really like candy at all, except Swedish fish on occasion, sometimes jelly beans. Chocolate on the other hand, doesn't really qualify as candy and is in my book, a food of goddesses.
5. When I sit at my desk, or in a chair anywhere really, I like to pull my knees up to my chest. My feet are always resting on the seat of the chair, and as long as the weather permits, they are bare.
I am tagging anyone who wants to play.
Illustration Friday: Escape
Fall is officially here today, on quiet feet like a cat. Flame colored leaves gathering in numbers on the trees; the sun setting earlier over the lake. During the day, intense heat still in the sun, shivers almost, in the shade. Pumpkins in the fields now are round full orange moons; the corn--higher than our heads.
I can't believe we moved here 4 months ago. A long and lazy summer of watermelon, and farmer's markets has slipped by. Bean is crawling now and I can run five miles without effort. DH mountain bikes regularly. This has been our escape--to move here. Such gratitude fills me when I contemplate the difference.
Things go BANG and BUMP and BOOM when they fall. Over and over again.Studio Friday: Tryptic
This is my studio: Along one side of the dining room in our small apartment. Red walls. My desk is nestled below a built-in china cabinet with old leaded-glass doors. I keep them open, and use packing tape to affix notes and quotes, to-do lists and receipts to the glass. Into the latch hole I have stuck two drying maple leaves---the first that I picked up this season, fallen to the sidewalk, vermilion and gold.
I use the shelves in the china hutch for books. I stack my books both ways: spines facing up, and horizontally. And in front of them, mugs and jars with brushes, pencils, pens. An orchid my husband gave me on my birthday, no longer flowering, but still with waxy oblong leaves sits on my desk.
Everywhere, heaps of papers, books, magazines, paints. They spread out in circles around me, like the rings in water after a pebble has been thrown in. I am at the epicenter.
Things I keep within reach: my laptop, my camera (A Nikon CoolPix5000, Jillian, since you once asked), a bar chocolate (this yummy raspberry kind by Lake Champlain Chocolates), my favorite volumes of poetry (The Rag And Bone Shop of the Heart, edited by Robert Bly, Inland, by Pamela Alexander, A Tree Within, by Octavio Paz, and The Complete Poems of e.e. cummings) a bouquet of dried roses from my wedding, and my address book (a Metropolitan Museum of Art item, with irises on the cover).
Things I keep in my desk drawers: Lots of stationary boxes---now filled with scraps, pencils, magnetic poetry bits, glue, staples. A small metal wind-up toy. Silver embossing powder. Thumb tacks. Quarters. Packing tape. Bank statements. Vintage postcards, sparkly ribbon, thread. An old wallet. Burt's Bees raspberry lip balm. Sharpies.
Since starting this, it has begun to rain out. Hard pebbles of rain falling against the open screens. The night air comes in cool. Tomorrow I will paint I think. Tonight I try to paint with words.
Self Portrait Tuesday
I am standing at the window by my desk. When I hung them, the curtains were too long, so I cut them. Because I didn't hem them, the bottom edges are frayed. Bean has just discoverd them and is enthusiastically tugging on them while trying to climb my leg. I hold the camera out and snap a picture. This is it. Then I scoop Bean up, and tickle his tummy until he lets out a delighted peel of laughter, then set him down beside my desk. I download the picture, and am surprised by it. Rebel? Maybe. More likely: sincere, serious, intense, determined, pensive, thoughtful.
Bath dinosaur still life
Artifacts of ourselves
On Friday, the minute after I posted, Bean woke up, still fussy, still with huge brontosaurus tears, inconsolable, needy. It was a long weekend. We're adjusting to a possibly teething, much more active little guy, and it's been a bit of a crash course. The house is finally quite tonight. The first time all weekend I've had down time--away from Bean, DH or friends, who often stop by now that we live in a neighborhood of people who share, among other things, our passion for outdoor sports and good food.
I went for a run this evening with Bean, and felt myself gradually shifting back towards my center. Bean napped for my entire five mile run, despite the fact he'd cried hysterically when we tried to put him down to nap beforehand. And as I ran, feet thrumming against the uneven, slightly damp pavement, I got to thinking about how having a child makes you examine your own archeology, as it were.
I see myself in my son. He's starting to be so purposeful in the ways in which he interacts with the world. He's cognizant now of cause and effect, and has discovered that HE can affect the outcome of something. He is active, curious, and ready to laugh. Yet he is also stubborn and determined. Like me as a girl, when he gets wound up, crying hysterically, water sooths him. I wonder now, as he's becoming an active participant in the world around him, what lessons I'm inadvertently teaching him, simply by being myself.
What do I affirm, or negate with my daily actions? My choice of words, the way DH and I interact, the places we go, taking Bean with us in the Bjorn or running stroller, how do these things all affect him? The tracks we make with our daily living, grow apparent in his big eyes, in his laughter, in his tears.
I once read an article by a mother who had wisely observed that her elementary aged daughter mimicked her patterns of speech and tone of voice. At the time I remember thinking how as a teacher I noticed this as well---my entire class of third graders would pick up certain mannerisms or idioms I frequently used. Like chameleons, children take on the color of their world.
I realize that my son watches me intently and often. He beams up at me when he sees me looking back, and then contentedly turns back to his toys. But he often stops to watch me adjust my hair, or sigh. He notices when I grow tense, and his body tenses too.
All this to say, after a long weekend of too much tenseness. Of fussiness and aggravation and short words, I realized something small, yet huge. I need to take space for myself regularly and often. I need moments of quiet, where I can paint Bean's bath dinosaurs, or sip a glass of wine, eat some dark chocolate and finish my book.
It feels selfish and obtuse to insist on this time. Yet without it, I find my inner landscape feels shaken like a snow globe. I scatter myself carelessly, pounce easily. And Bean absorbs this, his whole being noticing these
Gathering up the pieces
The morning was unassuming enough. Out of routine, because of the rain and the fact that Bean woke up nearly an hour earlier than he usually does. No morning walk, but cinnamon toast instead. The newspaper. Coffee. The essentials were all there. And Bean took a nap, like he normally does, but woke from it suddenly, fussy. And then the day went careening off kilter. Bean gradually fell apart. As did I. One of those days where darkness seems to fall early because of the weather; when the house feels hot and tight. My body pent up and sluggish from having missed my runs for three days in a row.
Refusing to sleep, Bean skipped his second (typically long) nap and then screamed hysterically when either of us tried to lie down with him; to cuddle, to offer a boob, a pacifier, a warm body to curl up against. Of course, he seemed to know how thin my patience was.
DH and I kept shooting each other looks. DH trying to remain on the periphery as though it were MY duty to deal with Bean.
"You could ask me for help," he said.
My skin prickled with angry heat. "You could ask to help," I replied.
All either of us wanted was some solitude and down time. This is what makes parenting so hard. The fact that you can't just take space when you need it. I tried. DH, readily apologetic, made me tea, while Bean crawled in forlorn circles around the coffee table, alternately bursting into tears or grins depending on whether the cat walked by or not.
I wolfed down chocolate chip cookies, sipped tea and tried to read a chapter in my book while the two of them sat on the couch opposite me: Bean pushing all of Dh's buttons by repeatedly dropping his teething cracker under the couch.
When DH and I get sucked into self pity, we're both fools and we know it. The situation is beyond us. Neither of our faults. We know this. Yet we can't seem to help ourselves from lashing out. Acting morose. Bean was exhausted, over stimulated, inconsolable. Teething perhaps, or simply off.
Finally I drew a bath, and we all spent the next 45 minutes in the bathroom trying to regain our humor. Bean and I in the tub, chasing his wooden spoon. DH sitting on the tile with a dolphin washcloth tickling Bean and making him giggle. And everything was better.
Bean nursed for a long time then, and fell asleep making little whistling whimpering noises with his breath the way he did when he was a newborn. It's likely he'll be out for the night. There is still time for a swim, for making pizza with potatoes and Italian sausage, for drinking the bottle of wine we picked up at the store earlier. For laughing on the couch, finally watching the indie flick our neighbor recommended.
But oh the agony of getting to this. Like broken pottery. Shards everywhere. The mosaic can happen. But seeing the bigger picture is sometimes so hard.
Illustration Friday: Depth
Too often, we pull ourselves apart, seeing in our reflections a mosaic of discontent. We compare ourselves, compete, yet the starting and the ending point for each is vastly different. More than skin deep, beauty is a thing of wonder, of words, of intellect. The grace we bring to our work, the courage, the mess of gratitude, of sorrow, of moments, fills each of us differently. Why do we learn then, to make these shallow comparisons? Media pressing up against us from all sides, blurs our own internal voice, making us loose track of real depth, where it's found. In each of us, differently, wholly as we are.
7 Month Update
My Dear Little Bean, It is amazing to me that the weeks fly by this fast. Having you in our lives makes the days blur together the landscape does out the window of a moving car. It's a wonderful, giddy feeling, watching time dissolve like this: watching you grow. But also bittersweet, because you're officially more than half way through your babyhood.
You are seven months old and there are so many moments I spend with you when I want to scoop you up and devour you with kisses. You're so yummy right now, with your milky breath, your big sparkling eyes, and your butterball thighs. You've become all mischief and adventure this month, my little one, because YOU HAVE LEARNED HOW TO CRAWL.
Since then, you've gotten into everything of course. Which for the most part works out okay for dada and I since we’re not extraordinarily sophisticated with our interior decorating and don't have anything you can really destroy (except of course dada's lovely CDs which you relish tossing onto the floor!) Our concern is less about what you can damage, and more about what you can get into.
Speaking of which, you ARE still breastfeeding dude. This is your primary mode of sustenance, and it is highly advisable that you STOP TRYING TO BITE ME. Got that? We give you oodles of yummy things to bite, and eat even--and you do (you especially like bananas, apple sauce and avocados)---but never with the fervor and glee that you reserve for the occasional illicit chomp on my boob. I am not okay with this, by the way.
Last month you were a disaster in the sleep department because of all that "milestone wake-up" business, so we implemented a bedtime routine that involves taking a warm shower with Daddy and then snuggling into bed with mama for nursing and lullabies. I never thought I'd be this kind of mom. The kind that crawls into bed with her baby to put him to sleep. But I am. And for the most part I enjoy those quiet, sleepy, dark-room moments where we're pressed up against each other, and you're all nestled into the crook of my arm. And when you're next to me you don't try to roll over to crawl, which works out just fine, since you GET SO MAD when you do that, but you can't seem to stop yourself---or couldn't, all last month.
Love, Mama
Starting a different story
When I looked at my body in the full-length mirror after a shower as a teenager the one thing I always hated was my stomach. Once puberty hit, I got curves, like every other girl. And I felt betrayed. My stomach was not flat or defined or angular which I imagined was necessary for beauty.
Then, I wasn't self-critical about where I'd picked these perceptions. I didn't analyze the constant stream of skinny media I consumed. Instead, I only knew my stomach as my greatest flaw.
I went to a small high school. Twenty-two kids in my graduating class. Not quite preppy, not quite hippie either, but somewhere in the middle. We did a lot of art. We read Dante and Dostoyevsky. We went to San Francisco to study architecture for a weekend and hiked the Lost Coast together. But because the class was so small all of my classmates were my friends, even when they weren't. Competition was fierce.
The summer before ninth grade a tall red-headed girl, who had been in my eighth grade class and played the meanest game of basketball ever, became anorexic.
Five foot ten by the age of fourteen, she'd always been lanky, but tough too. In the fall we heard she was hospitalized weighing 69 pounds. She never came back to our school, and though she lived, I only saw her twice again, once the year after we all graduated and once later in passing on the street. Both times she looked gaunt and hungry without the fire she'd once had when she was still a kid, shooting hoops, pushing the boys out of the way.
But because of the smallness of our high school world, that girl's anorexia hit the girls in my class like a tidal wave. Everyone got skinny. Everyone had boney hips. Curves were shunned at a time when curves were just developing.
And though I never became fully entrenched in the deep scaring groove that anorexia can become, I did obsess about my weight. I didn't eat enough.
But I was also lucky, because I've never been drawn to the superficial. Always, I've been pulled to ideas, to what's deep, to things that matter beyond appearance. So though I wavered there on the brink of an obsession with skinniness, I never fully gave in to its calling. Always distracted at the last minute by somebody's story, by teaching kids, or by body boarding.
But many girls in my class were less lucky. Content to suck on one lolly pop all day long, they were gorgeous and gaunt and pissed off.
I graduated and spent a year in Europe with a boy I'd met in Germany. He taught me to rock climb, and for the first time in my life I realized that my body was really good for something other than being looked at. Since then, I've always fallen back on this. I've started to see my body as a tool---as a part of the mechanism that makes it possible for me to mountain bike, to ski, to run, to swim, to climb. And I acquired a decent set of legs. Some muscles where they aught to be. Some strength.
But I still maintained an uneasy relationship with my stomach. Less lean, less tough, less firm than the rest of me, it portrayed my proverbial soft side. It made me feel vulnerable, if not a little self-loathing.
Then, two April's ago, I hung out with my mom who was living in Boulder, Colorado. I flew out over the tall jagged Rocky Mountains to see her, and we sat in her tiny studio apartment, going through her horrible wardrobe of clothing, and talking first time about her body image.
It hit me then. More than anything else, it was my mother;s self-depreciating, shy, prudish perception of herself that defined the language of my own negative image. Always dressed in a turtleneck, even in summer, she hates her collar bones, her stomach, her thighs. And she is obsessed with the small roll of flesh that curves over the waist of her size eight jeans.
A month after our visit, I found out I was pregnant, and for the first time in my life I put my hand on the curve of my stomach and felt wonder.
Wonder that this body, this stomach could contain life. And this feeling continued to grow as the orb of my belly did. I watched my skin grow taught. Watched the inevitable stretch marks appear, despite coco butter and crossed fingers. Watched my belly button pop out.
And then my son was born and I was left with the sagging curve of womb that had been his world. But something of the reverie I'd felt towards my stomach remained. I made a pact with myself to no longer rile against a part of me that could do such a miraculous thing.
Since then I've done a lot of running. More than I've ever done, because I have the time, the space, the energy to do it. And my stomach, like my entire body has grown strong as a result. But something else has changed along the way, that has more to do with my perception than with actual flesh.
It has to do with gratitude for my body, just as it is. For the pure loveliness of a stomach that has given birth, for the wonderment hips. Yet posting this picture for Self Portrait Tuesday’s September theme of body parts still seemed risky. An open acknowledgement of my softest side. But I was compelled to post anyway, because as I read what so many other lovely women write, I know that this story is terribly universal.
We've all been here, it seems. This internal battling with the beauty and the softness of curves that make us who we are. And I'm ready to start a different story.
Frye Boots
The places he gets to now
Did I mention, he's a CRAWLING TERROR? Yeah, well, he is. He has officially figured out how to crawl, and it's so adorable and miraculous the way he slaps each little hand down on the floor with determination as he moves forwards. And totally terrifying. Because he does things like get stuck under chairs now. And the other day, I found him up to his elbows in the cat's water bowl--which took him -3 seconds to get to. But the good thing is, because he's finally crawling for real, his night time routine seems to have settled down again--no more 'milestone wake ups.' And this morning, the incredible happened. He snuggled in with us after playing for a little while when he woke up at 6am, and WENT BACK TO SLEEP. We got to sleep in this morning people. Do you know how amazing this is??? We slept until 9am, and then went to the local market to buy breakfast and sit in the sun. So lovely.
Taking note of small things
The last bright flames of flowers farmer's market this morning, gathered up into a whimsical bouquet. The air had a certain chill all day, a harbinger of shorter days, of early twilight, of southerly migrations.
Finally, after a week that felt slightly tumbled from it's own momentum and busyness, today was solace. A morning ramble through stalls of fresh goat cheese and honey, samosas, carrots stacked high, and golden squashes. We sat in the sun by the fountain to drink our lattes and eat freshly made croissants.
Later we watched black smiths bend hot metal--part of this weekend's ongoing art festival. They worked in perfect tandem, their hammers making pinging thuds in the crisp air.
True to my promise, I dug myself into a book for awhile when Bean took his mid day nap--Broken For You, by Stephanie Kallos, which is proving thus far to be eccentric, delightful, and well worded. It felt so good to soak up sentences. To be wholly transported into the world of fiction.
Fall brings days like this--wistful, lazy, but with a slight zing. We went running in the early evening, noticing many monarch butterflies on the milkweed along the edge of the bike path. And coming back to our neighborhood we found a new Mexican burrito place, and a lovely cafe, full of eclectic art, excellent espresso and live music.
It is so easy to become a creature of habit. To grow so accustomed to daily patterns of living that one is no longer actively aware of one's surroundings. Today I made mindfulness my mantra. I took the time to notice small things---to gather them up with my eyes and feed my soul wonder.
Literary diet.
After a morning of silver gray skies, rain came down, filling up puddles and freckling my sweatshirt on the way to dinner at the local vegetarian cafe. We talked about classic literature versus modern popular literature over our plates of pasta. Modern literature, we agreed, often seems to be targeted at a specific audience. Chick lit. Sci Fi. Environmental lit. Action. Fantasy. The scope of traditional genres has expanded almost exponentially--creating micro genres that custom fit each population pigeon hole.
Classical literature by comparison (and by classical we were referring to the heady works of Plato, Homer and Aristotle) encompasses a great deal more, it seems. It was the human archetypes that those first authors were after, not readership. IDEAS mattered more than popularity or a pretty book jacket.
It's interesting to reflect how we've changed as readers and human beings both since Socrates was widely read. I squirm a bit realizing how little I know of these great works compared with my great grandparents, or my father, even. But I also feel like the readership today has gained something from its perpetual quest of self-examination. Despite our loss of common ethics that the archetypal heroes once provided, I think we are learning something new about simply being human, in all it's varied peculiarity, from this flood of market specific media.
The blogosphere I've been bouncing around in is like this: windows into other people's daily bubbles. Lives on tap. Real time. Installment by installment we discover how across the world we've got things to say to someone who we won't likely meet in person over Sophocles in a cafe. And though I love this, because like most people I'm a horrible snoop---eavesdropping is my chosen addictionâ€--I've started to feel diluted this week. My literary diet has grown sparce.
I've got a whole stack of books on my shelf that I've been meaning to read: meaty stuff (no Homer this time though) that requires me to do more than click for comments.
Being well read has always been on my long list of "To do this lifetime" items, and this past month I;ve barely gotten through the front page of the Wall Street Journal most mornings, when we sit together DH, Bean and I on a bench downtown, with our iced coffees and bagels.
Of course this has much to do with the fact that Bean is truly crawling now, suddenly and with fierce determination towards electrical cords and the cat's water bowl, than it does with anything else. But it also has to do with self discipline.
This is not a new topic for me. The terrible internal struggle to focus, to say more than what's just at the surface, to delve into the issues is one I am constantly waging.
Winter is coming, the few scattered orange leaves on the sidewalk tell me so, floating vein-side up in the puddles. In just a few short months the trees will be bare, the sky raw gray, the water cold. It is time to refocus, gathering myself towards my own embering center. Starting now.