Someone said, "batten down the hatches"

Is this what they were refering to?

Bean did the standing thing several more times today for 10-15 seconds at a go. AND he started taking bold and daring risks---moving between cruising surfaces without hands, or, as pictured here, CLIMBING WILLY NILLY onto surfaces previously entirely off his radar screen. DH took this picture when he came running after hearing low moans and squeals of delight coming simultaneously from the direction of my office. I'm starting to understand that this is the beginning of all things terrifying and wonderful and that my life is officially over as I know it. Isn't it?

Noticing right now

Tonight Bean stood. STOOD. On his how two little feet. For long enough that DH could come through the door from the kitchen into my office and see him standing, not aware of his own miraculous feat—or feet! Stood long enough for us both to stare at him and gasp. Longer than any previous wobbly attempts. And then finally he realized he wasn’t holding on, and quickly reached out for me, grinning.

I am not sure how to explain how this made me feel. The constant rushing forward of time leaves me breathless. His GROWING leaves me breathless. I remember as a kid waiting for what felt like FOREVER for my birthday to come. A year felt like as long as my whole life. One weekend to the next stretched on indefinitely. Don’t you remember that? That blurry sense of time? As an adult I experience it so differently, and especially now watching my son, whose inner and outer growth is so immediate and exponential.

The amazing thing about him standing was that he was so concentrated on the new container I’d given him to look at—so wholly absorbed in observation—that he was completely unaware of his body. His little muscles, his skeleton, and his cerebellum took over. Auto pilot. For the first time.

As adults we do so much on auto pilot. Walking is something most of us are rarely aware of. We eat, drive, make dinner, take a crap, have entire conversations, even---all with our minds elsewhere. Of course there is a certain necessity to all this absentmindedness—multitasking makes the world run (any woman can attest to this). And there is definitely something to be said for being able to read the entire issue of People cover to cover while completing one’s business on the loo. But watching Bean in those freeze-frame slow-motion seconds of time when his body took over and his mind was wholly somewhere else made me contemplate the what it means to be truly present.

Walking downtown tonight crystalline snow was falling around us. Each snowflake individuated and big enough for you to see it’s magnificent hexagonal construction. Bean kept looking up at them swirling in the light of the street lamps, and then he’d look over at me and smile these huge brand-new tooth smiles that said more about his happiness and wonder than words ever will, and a part of me wanted to slow time down again to that dreamy pace of childhood—when everything is NOW and FOREVER both at the same time.

Of green beans and vacuum love

This kid is cracking me up lately. He’s starting to be his own little person, and often puts on a silly show just for our benifit. Witness the green bean pictures. He took great joy in alternately blowing loud raspberries and then making funny sucking noises, holding the green bean in place hands free. And, clearly delighted that he was making us giggle, he sweetly offered his Daddy a drag.

He also has an obsessive love for any and all vacuums. (I used to vacuum with him in a sling when he was very small and wouldn’t stop crying. The loud constant noise and the rocking works wonders. Usually he’d be asleep in minutes. This may be the cause of his undying devotion.) The minute the vacuum comes out he scampers over as fast as one can scamper on all fours (which is a heck of a lot faster than you’d think.) He helps me push the vacuum from room to room, trundling after it with increasingly confident steps. Then he thrills to help me push the cord retractor, grinning so wide you can see his spanking new teeth all in a gleaming row. Other times I leave the vacuum out for a while just for his amusment, and he lovingly lies atop it, humming a litttle tune to himself.

But the best was Bean's encounter with the vacuum at the grandparents house, which STANDS UP rather than rolls. He was in AWE, and promptly began worshipping it.

Say Yes

Think about all the lists that have been made in the past few days. Enough words, put back to back, to travel to the moon on. Our hope for the New Year hanging on each syllable.

For the past few days I've been trying to articulate what I want truly for this year. What the deepest, pomegranate red portion of my heart longs for. What my soul asks for thirstily, standing by the river of my dreams. And I’ve come up with this: I want this year to be rich in experience. I want to say yes to each moment as it happens.

Tonight at the gym, whirring away on the ellipse machine my in new running shoes, I started reading a dog-eared copy of Oprah. Somehow it was not by chance that I turned to a review of the book, Goal Free Living: Have the Life You Want Now!, which posits the brilliant, wild, possible truth that the happiest people in the world are those who life richly in the moment, following their passions. Goals, the author says, limit the outcome. Success is possible with goals, but narrowly. MORE is possible than your goals. I’m game for that.

But I also there is a certain magic in the superhero way of looking at things. Put the unsayable secret dreams of your heart down in writing. Say yes to the things you wish for yourself if you dared. And then say yes to this very moment.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Personal History # 1

We were camping. I was ten or eleven years old. I’m not sure where we were, but the memory I have attached to this photo is very specific. My dad and I were playing on the grass. I’d throw my body onto his feet and he’d bring me up over his head. Then I’d land, and walk myself forward on my hands, giggling, imagining I was in the circus.

It is the only memory I have of playing with my father like this. We played often with words and sometimes with chess, but rarely just the rough and tumble kind of play that kids love best. Somersaulting head over heals, giddy with laughter, climbing up, rolling, wrestling. Both of my parents were intellectuals. To have fun was to read a good book together or maybe play a board game. I have dozens of memories curled up on the couch with one or both of my parents laughing ‘till my sides ached over a good story, and I recall a handful of times sitting at the table learning strategies for playing chess or scrabble and loving it.

But there is a empty place in my being where I remember my child self longing to play ball with my dad, to ride piggy back, chase, or hide and seek. I’m not sure if my parents chose to avoid these things purposely, or simply didn’t think of them—neither being drawn to play or sports themselves. What I do know is that every single day I get down on the floor with my son and let him turn my body into a jungle gym. We dance together. We shimmy. He rides on my shoulders and twirls in my arms. He giggles. And his laughter is balm to that child part of myself that clings to the memory in this photo.

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A year goes quickly by

It’s New Year’s Eve, and like nearly everyone else who has lived since the time when the calendar we use today first was implemented, I find myself taking pause, making lists, and feeling a bit dumbfounded at how quickly and suddenly the year has come to completion. This year was one of beginnings and endings for me. One of monumental changes. A job ended. Motherhood began. My entire sense of self has shifted deeply this year.

I want to write profound things, or at least meaningful ones, but my head aches from too little sleep. Yesterday we played. Today we drove home: seven hours in the car with Bean, starting at 4a.m. Tiredness saturates my body. We didn’t leave the house clean, and came back to find it had not cleaned itself. The plants---almost dead, the laundry—still not done. But it feels good to be home again in this tiny place where Bean is safe in every room (all hazards have already been cleared) and I can scoot from the bathroom to the bedroom in barely a towel without worrying I’ll offend someone.

I sit with my feet on DH’s thigh, my laptop in my lap, and the cat curled close to my toes. Our shared silence and closeness fills me with contentment. And then I think, CRAP. We’re acting like OLD FOLKS. We had dinner with friends, babies in tow, at five. Watched fireworks over the water by 7:30, and by 8 p.m. were home running a bath for Bean. But oddly, it’s been the best New Year’s Eve I can remember in a long time. So much to look forward to. So much to be greatful for. And absolutely zero expectations of a glamorous night out somewhere in uncomfortably pretty shoes and a slinky dress.

So here are my lists (I love lists):

Do: The Artist’s Way creative workshop. The Breadloaf Writer’s workshop Get to know the neighbors in our new home Learn to make authentic chai tea Plant a vegetable garden Apprentice at an apiary Complete a triathlon

Be: Present in the moment Patient with my son and husband Open to new possibilities Flexible in the face of change Generous with the resources I have Brave enough to take risks Disciplined enough to follow through

Dream: Of having a life rich in experiences Of traveling abroad with my family Of teaching writing Of making a home, HOME Of growing new friendships Of becoming involved in the local community Of making a difference

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.

Say Yes

He sits on the lawn amidst heaps of brown oak leaves giggling wildly at the dog. Tomorrow we leave before the sun comes up. Today, his Nonna scoops him up, and carries him off for a nap. Such sweetness. Such sheer delight. It's been good to be here where the December sun is mellow and warm, and someone's always ready with open arms to play with Bean. But we're ready to go home to a house waiting with late-arrival packages, tivoed Project Runway shows, and the simple routine of just us.

Yesterday, after many phone calls, it was confirmed: the house will close---later rather than sooner---but it will. The mortgage rate will stay the same for another month (big exhale), and in the meantime we'll have a chance to ski a couple times, gather paint samples, and visit kitchen showrooms.

Yesterday Marilyn reminded me to visualize the positive, and last night I read this post, and decided simply to say YES. To trust, to breathe, to be thankful. Looking at Bean, his entire face dancing with grins, how can I not?

Illustration Friday: Flavor

I use Indian ink waterproof pens in my notebook, following the contours my hand chooses randomly, letting the day’s weight fall away from me. I let crazy whirling color happen. A mosaic of possibilities is always waiting to unfold. Every possible outcome awaits.

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.

Milestone wake-ups and the magic of slumber

As I lie in the semi dark with my son waiting for his breath to settle into the rhythm of sleep, I wonder about the bigness of his small self. So much more than the tiny bundle of limbs, soft and warm curled in the nook of my arm. One look into his big beautiful eyes and I find myself swimming in the wide pools of his spirit.

It amazes me that something as vital and natural as sleep is something we have to learn. Of course, there are the times when exhaustion overcomes him and he sinks, sack-like into a deep sleep wherever he is. But on a nightly basis letting go of his body---surrendering to the tide of sleep is not something he knows---I must teach him how to still his active little body. Find a rhythm. Breath in sleep.

Each time his body works itself through a sleep cycle, the neurons in his brain send him the busy active messages his body is reading all day: stand, stand, stand, they say. Reach. Climb. Walk. Before I come to bed he sleeps in his crib, and usually I hear him cry out at least once. I come to find him awake in the dark, standing. Then I nurse him, hold him close, allowing the tide of my breath to wash over him, carrying him back to the world of sleep.

Sometimes in these long moments with him in the dark I realize that I am at the cusp of one of the mysteries of being human. Wonder saturates me each time he awakens, trailing the stardust of dreams, a smile blooming at the corners of his eyes.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Reflective Surface # 4

This is me doing my long lanky leg thing in the dual mirrors in my inlaw's bathroom. I've always been told I'm a bit of a gorilla because my legs and arms seem to be disproportionately long in comparison to my body. And to capture a reflection of myself, in a reflection of myself, I had to do a fair amount of contorting. Like trying to write using a mirror, I kept bumping into walls expecting my body to be going in the direction of my reflection. Sometimes I feel a bit like this, especially after not having a minute to myself in a house full of second generation Italians, a first generation Korean and a baby—-as though the different pieces of me bump up against themselves, and at the end of a day all that’s left are a few disembodied thoughts that don’t quite sum me up, but almost do.

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Sunday Mosaic # 5: Christmas Day

Awake with the first light of morning spreading its way through the opaque curtains. Bean in his red footie snowman pajamas nestles into the nook of my neck for one final snuggle before announcing his desire to roust the world and investigate every corner of it.

DH and I pass him of to his grandmother and take a shower like we used to in college, together, bumping elbows, kissing, grinning. We join the others in the kitchen with damp hair and pour cups of coffee. I make scones, crumbling the butter with the flour until it feels like wet sand. A sprinkle of cream and raw sugar on the top of each will make them sweet and brown in the oven.

Later everyone is on the couch opening presents almost simultaneously. It is a blur of red and patterned paper. Bean gets a little Radio Flyer wagon and his grin couldn’t be wider when he figures out how it works. He spends the rest of the morning as a battering ram, pushing the cart around the room at a careening pace, grinning from ear to ear. All the unwrapping leaves me breathless, and Bean exhausted. By 9:30 we curl up in bed again. He naps, and I look out the window, watching blackbirds and wondering about the remarkable warp and weft that makes family.

In the late afternoon DH calmly descends upon the kitchen and pulls together an exquisite meal almost single handedly: turkey breast stuffed with prosciutto, sage, apples and rosemary; garlic mashed potatoes, sautéed asparagus, cran-rasberry sauce, and sausage stuffing. I put some funky French street-performance inspired music on the stereo, dance with the baby, and make a salad with red leaf lettuce, pomegranate, asiago cheese and apples.

There are of course the moments of raised eyebrows when the siblings-in-law act the way they always do: condescending and critical. But we leave it at that, diluting the tension with the fact that we are together. This is family.

By dinner Bean is in the throws of teething agony—his second top tooth is cutting through. During dinner he sits in my lap and bangs his spoon on his highchair which he refuses to sit in. I gulp my food, feeling guilty. A late dinner has put us past his normal bedtime. I run the bath, but forget to stop the drain so all the hot water runs out. I remember in time to get two inches of luke warm water in the bottom of the tub, but Bean doesn’t seem to notice—- he’s too obsessed with the full length mirror along the wall of the tub and kisses his reflection.

By the time he finally is asleep my throat hurts and I make tea. Days like this fill my heart to bursting with the ups and downs of being a part of the small group of people that make me whole. With the tug of longing for my own family: my sisters, my mom. With the wonder at my small boy who suddenly has four teeth and is almost walking. With wide love I have for DH, who can still after seven Christmases make me giddy for this holiday just by association.

Merry Christmas!

The years fold on top of each other like the pages in an accordion book, each one nearly obscuring the last. Tonight we decorated the tree with ornaments from DH’s childhood. Bean’s eyes were wide with wonder, and he tried pulling on the strings of lights. We spent the evening watching old home movies from when DH was small and eager, hoisting his parents out of bed before the first morning light to unwrap heaps of presents. Crazy how his parents have the same voices twenty years later. How they say the same things. How some things never change. And then we wonder: is this how we’ll still be?

I try to remember my own Christmases growing up. I see snapshots. Glass bells and red balls. Real candles on the tree. Christmas morning pancakes. Taking turns to open just a few presents, and then saving more for the remaining days of Christmas. Singing carols around the tree in the semi dark of dancing candle light.

I try to remember my parents, and gather only scraps. The warmth of my father’s chest as I sat curled up against him singing carols. His eyes like bluebirds in flight as he guessed the content of each present. My mother making gingerbread, her hands holding the wooden rolling pin. Her eyes tearing up at a certain German carol that reminded her of her own childhood traditions.

DH and I imagine making Christmas next year in our new house. Snow on the ground. Good food. We laugh trying to imagine how Bean will remember us after years there. What will we look like to ourselves when we look back on the blurry video footage of NOW?

The clock is about to chime bringing tomorrow. Another Christmas with some small nook of my heart still filled with wonder at that bright Christmas star that led shepherds and wisemen to the birth of an incredible being. But it is also filled with a flood of love—for the people I am with, and for those I’m missing across the country.

Merry Christmas to all of you wonderful blogging folk who have filled my life with so much humor and brilliance and beauty and snarkiness and joy!

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.

Illustration Friday: Imagine

Sometimes painting is like this: moments of clear, vivid emptiness where imagination takes hold and wanders. Then, it is about allowing something that already exists to be. About being open.

I know all things are like this: parenting, writing, making love, communicating. And I know that most of the time I make it more complicated than it is. I convolute things by adding clarifiers, making preemptive sketches, planning in advance.

It is hard to trust the possibilities of imagination. Harder still to trust that what I imagine is possible.

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The Best of Blogs is doing their second annual awards soon. I'm doing lots of nominating. Check out the categories & vote. It's fun.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Reflective Surface # 3

I posted a different spt last night, but this morning, fickle as I am, I liked this one better. The artist in me is somehow unused to the fixed dynamic of a photo. I want to keep coming back and changing things, like I can with a brush.

When I woke up this morning, the fork and spoon reflections seemed brittle compared with this surreal image. I love the color of it, and the blur---how only the corner of the label is in focus, and my finger is pointing to some blue angle of light picked up by the lens, as though gesturing to a dream. I like how the reflection shows mostly my hand reaching, and then my dark silhouette. Somehow this is a truer self portrait: there I am, reaching for the things that can hardly be defined.

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Nourishment

I make a promise: two poems every day. One for eating, the words from the pages of a book like the pomegranate fruit: fire inside a leathery skin. And one for pouring out from the parched place in me: (that waits for perfect sentence, the witty one, the just-so observation, the clean narration, but needs the messiness of each stained seed, just as it is)

words cupped in the bowl of the poem; a mouthful of red juice.

Mischief

It seemed a little too quiet. I was in the dining room (which serves double duty as my office) and Bean was in the living room---within earshot, but just out of sight. For five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, only silence. An occasional grunt or rustle let me know he was still alive---but there were no shrieks, no customary giggles or roars. And you know---it's probably terrible that I didn't jump up immediately, and instead thought "I wonder how much I can get done before he starts making noise." Yes, I imagined the possibilities. Even the worst, when weighed against fifteen minutes of undivided (quiet) time to finish writing xmas cards, print pictures, and wrap presents, was just not terrible enough.

Finally I heard a giggle, and then the fwapity-fwap sounds of him crawling away from the scene of the crime. This is what I found. I didn't have time to adjust the iso so the pictures came out all blurry. But they probably would have come out blurry anyway. I couldn't stop laughing. He STUFFED THE TISSUES UP THE FRONT OF HIS SWEATER, people. All by himself. How funny is that? And the wreckage of the tissue box (and my living room)? It was TOTALLY WORTH IT.