A small sampling of our visit to the farm today.
Illustration Friaday: Cold
It has rained here for two weeks straight, and the air has turned cold. I've almost grown used to indirect light of these grey days, and squinted yesterday when the afternoon the sun burst through.
We went running, wearing hats and fleece, and the light in the sky and on the lake was so beautiful it nearly took our breath away. The hills were red with turning maples, and in the light of the setting sun they were on fire. The clouds, backlit and dark. Leaves blowing in windy spirals.
We ran past the beach---where in summer throngs of people with beers and kids with plastic sandcastle buckets gathered around barbecue pits---and the picnic tables were upturned and stacked for winter in a heap. Along the path, sumac leaves the shape of spear tips, had turned to burnished gold. And in the sky above us, geese in long Vs moving south, kept calling out.
I couldn't stop running: my lungs sucking in the cold air, feet falling evenly on the wet pavement. We ran past dark puddles where I could see leaves, sunken like yellow boats, below the surface. I couldn't stop, because those glorious fleeting moments of late autumn sun and clouds, cold air meeting the heat of my cheeks, made me want to cry.
Self Portrait Tuesday: Life Documentary Series #3
Acting silly, the wind in our hair.
In a rare snatched moment of just us.
Tagged
The incredibly talented Carla tagged me. I'm supposed to list 20 random things about myself and then tag as many people as it took minutes for me to write my list. I did play by the rules in that the list is random. It took me about 20 minutes to write however, so I'll not be tagging 20 people. Although that might be fun... 20 random facts:
1) Encarta's definition of topography: a study or detailed description of the various features of any object or entity and the relationships between them.
2) Things I'm into this month include: raspberry doughnuts, corduroys, chocolate colored sweaters, packages in the mail, beeswax candles, and wine with pretty labels.
3) I forget to eat and then get really moody and totally annoyed that I'm hungry.
4) I intensely dislike having to talk to people I don't know on the phone (except it was delightful to talk to Elaine, who has a lovely musical laugh, and who sounds just like I'd imagined: strong, wise, and insightful.)
5) I stay up way too late at night.
6) My second serious boyfriend in high school once told me to "Go downstairs to the kitchen and help my mom cook me a nice steak."
7) At the time I saw nothing wrong with his request. Now I'm mortified.
8) I was born in Colorado.
9) I have taken care of a boa constrictor twice in my life.
10) One of my favorite flowers is the Zinnia.
11) When I'm by water, I skip stones.
12) I can't paint without getting it all over my hands.
13) I can't eat popsicles without getting the juice all over my shirt.
14) I like Thai iced tea, Mango Lassi, Chai, and Mexican Hot Chocolate.
15) I don't like fresh figs, brussel sprouts, or okra.
16) I love going skinny dipping, especially at night.
17) I'm a bit of a magazine whore: I have a shameful amount of subscriptions coming to my house (Yes Jillian, that includs People!) but I rarely watch T.V.
18) I'm not afraid to admit I like froufrou drinks like zinfandel and wine coolers.
19) I have taken extended backpacking trips in Pueto Rico, France, Switzerland, Germany and the Pacific Coastal U.S.A.
20) I say prayers.
I'm tagging (if they want to play, or have already been tagged..): Blackbird, Melanie, Steph, Fuzzypeach, and Jill
8 Months
Dear amazing standing Bean, You are an unbelievable eight months old today. You can stand. You did this first in the middle of the night, pulling up on your crib bars, and grinning this huge gummy grin. Now you pull up on everything: your high chair, the laundry basket, the vacuum, coffee table, ottoman and of course our legs! You're attempting to build vertical stability, and often try to stand holding on with just one hand. This works out fine, unless you get excited to see us or the cats or a toy and let go. Then you topple over and fuss for a half a second before we can scoop you up and shower you with kisses and then it's all better.
We've bean proofed the entire apartment so that you can have the run of the place. We want you to feel confident to explore your environment and take risks, while feeling safe knowing we're nearby. We want you to be able to explore gravity and push and pull. We want you to be able to figure out what happens when you climb INTO something or ONTO something, or occasionally THROUGH something. Even if you get stuck, which you invariably do. Even if you fall, which you invariably do. Because we want you to grow up knowing that you can explore things---and that you can get stuck and make mistakes, and it's okay.
Each month goes by in a blur. Some days feel long. Like when you wake up at night screaming because of a fart, or seven, or because you have the wiggles, or because you had a bad dream—or whatever it is that possesses your little self to wake up at 2 a.m, 2:30 a.m., 3 a.m., 4:30 a.m and so on. Or when, for some reason, during the day, you simply cant wind down enough to nap and you become a ferocious grump, crying whenever we set you down. This makes us exhausted. And often your daddy and I realize that we start pointing fingers at each other when we're like this (so tired our heads feel like they're splitting open). We start arguments and wax very sarcastic. But we're getting better at remembering that we're just tired. And that we love you more than anything in the whole wide world. So we make a lot of coffee on those days. We stop trying to pretend we'll be able to sleep in, and get up. We take long hot showers and go for a walk to the market with you in the Borjn, where we buy flakey raspberry Danishes and pumpkin muffins. And by the time we get back you're usually asleep.
You are a sensitive, thoughtful, goofy little guy. You giggle with delight still when you see the cats, or when we build towers up for you out of blocks and you knock them down. You love your book, That's Not My Lion, and grab the lion's ears, or tail or nose when we ask you where they are. You turn the pages yourself, and then you eat them. You discovered how to put things INTO your toybox this week. And it's amazing to watch you make choices about which toy you want to play with.
It's also amazing to watch you play with your little friend Bella. You smile so wide at her, and reach out to touch her face. And she thinks you're so cool because you can drink from a cup and stand and crawl. And you think she's just dandy and you suck on her socks. Last time you saw her you put your pacifier in her mouth. Her mama and I nearly died with laughter. You also get very jealous when I talk to Bella: you crawl over right away and flash me your most winning smile. If I don't pay attention right away, you start to yelp and get cross. It is incredible to watch your emotions unfold.
And yesterday, when you'd had entirely enough of mama by the end of the day, when you saw your dada come out of his office you reached out your arms to him. Then when he didn't come to you right away you squirmed to be put dow,and then you crawled straight to him, and tugged on his pants. His heart melted all over the floor.
Love, Mama
Studio Friday: Something Found
I've been hoarding stamps since I was eight. But these I found in DH's parent's basement: shoved into shoeboxe---tiny picture menageries belonging to one of their elderly friend's who had died and willed the contents of his house to them. Four boxes in all, many stamps are organized by type in small wax paper envelopes. Some are still attached to postcards or letters. I couldn't believe my luck.
One postcard of South African women standing wrapped in long white, red and yellow cloaks reads, "These are the people very near here. Most interesting country and my virst visit. Working hard but seeing a lot. Love Bill"
Another with a small cellophane package of sharp black lava crumbs from the Mauna Lao Volcano in Hawaii reads, "Now don't burn your fingers ha! ha! Having a grand time and a lovely place to stay here. Wish I had longer but must be off again. Hazel."
Since I first saw the brightly colored ornate stamp on an 'overseas' envelope addressed to my father when I was five, I was stricken with wanderlust and wonder. I could hardly fathom the places that spawned the exquisite tiny drawings of orchids or frogs, or the events that seemed noble enough to emblazon with the lithograph onto those tiny inch-by-one-inch squares.
History reveals itself on these small tokens of currency that send letters fluttering across the globe. Holiday greetings, inventions, political activism, endangered species. Everything, it seems, has been recorded for posterity on a stamp.
Growing up I pressed them under the glossy pages of a photo album, but now I keep them scattered. I use them in my art often when I'm seeking to capture a sense of the exotic or foreign. Or I use whole rows of the same stamp, repeating an image like Warhol in miniature. I know they might be worth something, but I have never been the type to preen over a collection. I keep my books dog-eared. I put flowers in antique vases, and I use these stamps.
(Click on each image to view them larger--they are so gorgeous, I couldn't resist including the full-size images.)
The lives of inanimate things
And I'm starting to think maybe they do, because recently in our house TOYS ARE EVERYWHERE. Strewn about, always underfoot, our floors have become a battlefield or a ballroom for inanimate things:
The small, developmentally appropriate, carefully selected objects: brightly colored wooden blocks. Rattles. Board books. Stuffed animals.
The not so carefully selected objects that work just as well: mixing bowls, a wooden salad spoon, an empty water bottle, a calculator.
And the things he selects himself: our magazines (shredded), The Wall Street Journal (crumpled), my cell phone (is that why it's suddenly beeping like it's posessed???) and anything and everything that can be climbed upon, pulled on, or sucked on.
Not ready to run in place
All week it's been gray and cold, and I feel myself falling out of the summer's rhythm of daily runs. This summer changed my thinking about my body. I realized that my body loves to run. Loves to sink into a steady loping pace, feeling my heart thrum in my chest, pushing blood to the vast network of capillaries that make me whole.
Today, because I have other things to do, the run ends quickly. I take the last blocks of sidewalk with quick even strides, already thinking about the things I need to do before I leave for my writing workshop. When I stop to cool down a street away from home I'm sad. I watch my shoes crunch over broken grass and kick the leaves along the sidewalk that have gathered there like guests outside the church after a wedding. I bought my shoes in June with good intentions, imagining like every other summer, I'd run a few times and loose motivation.
But I didn't. Instead I kept running, and my shoes now at the end of their season are worn in places. The soles packed and scuffed, have probably seen close to 100 miles of cement and gravel and dirt this summer. I'll be sad to give them up; to buy a new pair, destined to be treadmill shoes, as I run in place in front of a mirror through the winter.
Self Portrait Tuesday: October Documentary
My time: Coffee & croissants--fuel for the day.
Our time: He always wants to be near by.
My time: Gathering up drafts and editing photos
in the snatched moments when he naps.
His time: Taking baby steps.
Our time: Playing together on the lawn; waiting for dada
in the outdoor gear store; and a trip to the library.
Our time and then Their time: giving me my time.
Mama says om
Parenting is hard. The world moves around us in a spastic rhythm, a swirling chaos of day to day activity: work, school, meals, rest, noise, play, comfort, nurture. Finding the breath to everyday life is an art and often we find ourselves hyperventilating. At Mama Says Om, we look at parenting as a spiritual and often humorous endeavor. We write from the heart about those things that give us breath. Ignore the chaos in your own life and visit with us; it'll all still be there when you get back.
Come on, Mama. Just say Om.
What it's like
DH and Bean played and napped for 4 hours this afternoon while I got some real writing time in. I went to Borders, ordered an iced latte and a walnut cranberry cookie and plugged in my laptop next to an old man with a leather hat and a newspaper at the counter that faces out into the store. With Stan Getz on my ipod, and the background bustle of people coming and going around me, I was finally able to focus on my writing long enough to actually figure out what the hell I'm trying to write. I forget, until I have long stretches of time like this, what it feels like to really WRITE. To move past the snatched observations and the background twitter of my brain overloaded. At home, invariably, I distract myself. I get sidetracked into the minutia of crap I convince myself I need to do. But at Borders, where my worst vice is people watching, I more or less stick to what I'm there for: navigating the terrain of the story on my brain.
It's a crazy process. I feel like the blind lady I see around town often. She taps her way down familiar streets with hardly any hesitation. But when she comes to a crosswalk, or a change in pavement; a new flowerbox perhaps, or a heap of fallen leaves, she hesitates. Tapping the obstacle's outline with her stick until she knows its shape. Until she knows how to proceed.
All in a day's mischief...
Looking for the shape of words in autumn
I am fighting a deadline again for writing. A chapter in the book I can't imagine but feel compelled to write. I sit by my desk, sheaves from different drafts scattered round me like snow. I pace in my mind, restless with the slow process of imagining and believing that writing is for me. I want the ease of the paintbrush, the pencil. There, a leaf in front of me. Nothing is hidden. Every line revealed. Every shadow.
Saturday mosaic
A night of waking, but a later morning. Banana-pecan pancakes and coffee; enough time to finish my book. Bean asleep for a nap. Herb omelets and fresh orange juice. The cat wants in, out of the rain.
Skies the color of cement. Bright maple leaves like fallen stars under foot. Puddles in the low parts of the sidewalk, Bean in the Bjorn on DH, the three of us walking downtown.
At the farmer's market late, most of the stalls already packed up. Less people than the usual summer crowds. Gourds, squashes, pumpkins, bright root vegetables, their tips gathered up in piles. Organic local burgers from the farmer in the last stall who talked about his cows with an earnestness that was both sensible and loving.
Buildings stood up tall and stark against the wet autumn sky. The mercury hovered around fifty. Bean wore a hat, mittens, baby Uggs: shearling lined. I wore my boots, and felt my heels blister--the first christening of footwear for the season is always like this. In late spring, bands of blisters where my flip flops rub. Now my heels, soft, unused to boots, rubbed raw.
Later at a small harvest fest at the local market. A bright blue tractor. A bee keeper with a thin glass viewing hive. The bees circling round the queen, generating warmth in concentric circles. We picked out wine for diner with friends; apples to go in the wooden bowl on our coffee table at home. Bittersweet chocolate for a cake.
Small drops of rain fell, freckling the sidewalk. Clinging to grass. Making leaves stick wet and bright to our soles. Up high on a wire a lonely pair of shoesâ. I've always wondered about how shoes end up dangling there. I imagine boys, joshing each other, getting rid of an old pair of track shoes at the end of the season; or hoodlums pushing someone around, tossing up his shoes.
Hanging from their laces they felt like the small piece of my heart, wearing my father's blue flannel shirt this morning, as I wrote. It's been three years since he died, and more. And now my baby is taking steps around the coffee table, inching his way like he's up somewhere high, along the edge of a cliff.
Broken For You, by Stephanie Kallos
With a haphazard cast of characters, Broken For You tells the story of an elderly woman who has been diagnosed with brain cancer, and her growing friendship with a young woman who was abandoned as a child. It also tells a complex story of forgiveness and creativity: the young woman makes mosaics that document images of grief and love—and of the Holocaust—out of the broken bits of the thousands of rare antiques the older woman inherited—originally stolen by Nazis from the Jews in Europe.
The first half of the book was slow and indirect. It took me weeks to read. But as the plot unfurled amidst a gleeful smashing of plates, I became glued. I couldn’t put it down. Switching back and forth from simply narrating the story to a voice that speaks directly with the reader Kallos’ writing is bright, delicate and hopeful. She is brave enough to take up a dialogue with death and loss, and changes it with the beauty of the images she imagines and conveys. A wonderful, joyous read.
“Loved ones whose presence once filled us move into the distance; our eyes follow them as long as possible as they recede from view… Maybe we chase them…Maybe we stay put, left behind, and look for them in our dreams. But we never stop looking, not even after those we love become part of the unreachable horizon. We can never stop carrying the heavy weight of love on this pilgrimage; we can only transfigure what we carry. We can only shatter it and send it whirling into the world so that it can take shape in some new way.â€
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 = Purple Lipped Trout
It appears that in my last post I called the delightful plumy apricot concoction my son loves so much a plout. Blackbird kindly clarified that a plout is in fact a Purple Lipped Trout. (You will have to ask her how she knew this amazing information!) It seems that our small family has developed its own vernacular. Both DH and I are glib and silly when it comes to words. We make words fit, where no words do. Things have names in our house that we give them carelessly, in scattered moments when the right name wont come, and for some reason, they stick.
Such was the case with the plouts. We started by calling them ploots. Then, realizing there was a "uo" in the spelling, we began calling them plouts, recklessly without noticing the "uo" spelling. We sang many a rendition of "plout, plout, let it all out, these are the plouts we are talking about, come-on!" You get the idea. (Bean of course, thinks we are hysterical and rewards us with the most exquisite peals of laughter we'll do just about anything to get more.)
Interestingly when I was looking for links about pluots so that the general blogosphere could be informed, I googled "plout" and was perturbed to come up with a whopping 59,700 searches including that word---but most of them unfortunately, a) had nothing to do with the fruit in question, b) were written in a foreign language, or c) were fan sites for the Greek biographer Plutarch.
Incidentally, when PLUOT is correctly googled, it procures only 39,000 searches, most of them actually having to do with said fruit.
The funny thing is, not one search for PLOUT led me to the amazing PURPLE LIPPED TROUT, so I was forced to go obscure reefs with my watercolors and brushes to procure a specimen.
