Wringing a dry sponge, and therefore some photos

This NaBloPoMo thing is kicking my bootie. It was a totally uneventful day, and I'm still sickish so I don't have a whole lot of energy, and certainly have no ardent desire to write carefully crafted sentences. So instead I thought I'd take you on a random picture tour of yore (in other words, the only old pictures I could locate on MY hardrive. All the good ones are on DH's computer, since his hardrive is so much bigger than mine.) I'll begin by presenting you with a picture of the one and only time I've gone cross country skiing. I fell like nine-hundred times, from a near stand still.

I

Here is one of my favorite pictures of me EVER. It was my first snowy Christmas since I was oh, FOUR, and I was with DH's family in a teeny tiny cabin in the middle of the Northeast Kingdom. We went dog sledding and bought our Christmas tree lights from Ames, and made gingerbread cookies as ornaments. Definitely one of the best Christmasses ever.

This is a picture of me freezing my tail off in Quebec for New Years that same year. Look! I still have my vampire teeth from the days of yore (really, that's what the kids I taught called them. You get a thick skin when you're a teacher. Nothing like sweating profusely during a high-stakes evaluative observation and having a kid say, "Ms. C why do you have wet circles under your armpits? Anyway...) DH and I spent a few days there, drinking hot chocolate from huge bowls, ice scating at the outdoor public rink in the middle of the town square, and poking our heads into quaint little shops and restaurants. If you haven't been, Quebec is a lovely place to go. Everyone speaks French and drives very, very fast. It was also the first place I ever ate snails.

Not exactly sure of the date on this one. Way before we were engaged. Still in college maybe. Totally enamored. Can't you tell. (I know, that should be enough sappiness to last you a good long while. But just wait. I have more!)

And finally, the most cheesy, sappy, totally tacky and yet utterly sincere picture I could find of us about 5 minutes after DH proposed. We were camping. I was wearing some sort of sarong over my bathing suit (really!) Oh yes, and I had just died my hair--the one time I've ever boldly done that--RED. You like?

I do hope you've enjoyed this.

Self portrait: standing at the back door

I stand at the back door watching the rain. The air smells of water and sweet dying grass. The oak leaves still cling to the trees like bits of rust, and the wind stirs them wildly.

I’ve spent the past three days doing nothing. I keep bringing my mind back to now again and again, asking of myself only to heal. My body is weak from the fever I’ve had, and as I left or right, my eyes ache from the sudden sharp movement. My body feels fragile like a porcelain doll’s.

I can tell that I’ve been pouring too much energy out lately, and have been doing nothing to fill up my inner well. I look in the mirror, and see once again, I’ve aged. I step on the scale, and though the pounds haven’t changed, the percentages have—I’ve lost muscle recently. Lost muscle, and courage too.

So I spent these past three days lying mostly still, watching the light change, folding laundry, making simple food. I don’t feel ready to go back to work yet, but at some point, today or tomorrow, I know I will. It isn’t a choice. So I try instead to imagine a different outcome. I try to envision strength and boldness and verve. I call a therapist and make an appointment. I feel heat rising up in my body as I talk to her on the phone. It is so hard to admit to needing help.

I’ve been so damn independent my whole life, and always, I was that girl who everyone else came to when they had problems. It’s hard to be in the passenger seat now, fumbling for words, for tools, for anything to give context to this new vantage point.

I stand at the backdoor watching the rain fall in dark splotches on the smooth slate threshold. The sky is the color of crushed violets and ashes. I put on my boots and go for a walk.

Fever induced nostalgia

It is amazing how a day on the couch has made me wax utterly nostalgic. I don’t think I’ve had this much time doing nothing since, oh, a really long time ago. Today I had time to trawl blogs I’d long forgotten… and found, oh gloriously, Catherine Newman’s relatively new blog! Now this woman is almost single handedly responsible for my belief that one can parent a child lovingly and firmly while still having an occasional good laugh at his expense, and for this I am eternally grateful. Catherine used to post at babycenter.com, and it was her weekly essay there that made my pregnancy bearable.

I was terrified that I was pregnant, and DH was oh, at least eighty times more terrified than I was, that I was pregnant. We were not convinced that a baby could ever grow up to be anything more than a baby—which, according to most of our friends—ruined your sex life, your sleep, and your social life, and that was pretty much it as far as perks went.

Then I started reading Newman’s essays aloud to DH over breakfast, and we started laughing, and the terror gradually started easing. This essay was our all time favorite, because I do believe Ben has finally and forever gotten to the bottom of why the Grinch is so grinchy. But back then, neither of us could really believe that anything so astute could come out out of the mouth of something that came into the world via a birth canal. We had so much to learn.

Only a slim 20 months into this whole parenting thing, it's a whole different story. Granted, Bean may not yet be making such insightful literary references, but still, he’s doing his part at keeping us entertained. (Sitting in the bath the other night he let one rip, and looked at me wide eyed in surprise. He then spent the next ten minutes trying to SEE exactly where that small eruption had come from, by first craning his neck around and trying to look behind him; and then by standing up in the bath and peering with determination between his legs.)

It seems so funny to me to remember myself there, at the kitchen table in a different state, in a different house, anxiously surfing the internet for information about what to expect from the cashew sized Bean in my belly. I didn’t know about blogs. I had no idea I’d find friends through the internet, and if you had told me that, I most certainly would have told you how utterly creepy and ridiculous and lame that sounded. Because honestly, when you put it that way, it does sound just a tad lame, doesn’t it?

But it’s not. Oh, no. It’s been so fabulous to find blogs, to find YOU. To be able to lament to other mamas about the latest perils and pains of toddlerdom, and best of all to ask, and to receive answers. My “real life" friends who know about this blog think I’m kindof ridiculous when I admit that I get most of my parenting advice from a bunch of moms I’ve never met in person—but it’s because of people like you, and people like Catherine, that I’ve stayed sane these past 20 months and also, remarkably, fallen in love with being a mom.

You’ll have to forgive me for the ramble-on quality of this post. Like I mentioned, I’m feverish, and before I put him to bed, Bean spent his entire bath trying to hold on to either one or the other of his buttocks. I know you'll understand.

Sunday List

* As I feared, by bedtime I was running a fever, and spent the night alternately hot and shivering. * Spent Sunday in bed, mostly, watching the light travel across the room, and dreaming bizzare dreams.

* Ate the best soup ever for lunch--made my DH. Just the kind of soup you long for when your sick, light, brothy, with just enough salt.

* Felt my heart expand with amazement as Bean kept coming over to me, wanting to kiss me, or just be close.

* Wrote some last minute lesson plans, and called in sick. Crap. I hate doing that. I feel so responsible for the little rascals I teach.

* You may officially declare this a useless post. Thank NaBloPoMo.

Exhausted

* My best friend showed up on Thursday, and like usual, she made me smile THIS WIDE, knowing just exactly what I mean...offering the best cup of coffee, perfectly sweetened...and waking up at a cheery 6:29am when Bean hurtled down the hall and let himself into her bedroom calling her name with glee. * Bean slept through the night last night (thank god) but I still woke up in the worst mood ever, and had to lie in bed staring at the sky changing from soft pink to blue for a very long time before I was certain I would not bite anyone's head off. I took a nap later, and it didn't help. I still felt like I was trailing myself by a good two yards until noon.

* This afternoon we hosted a get-together for a half-dozen newish friends with toddlers. We sat on the floor. People brought snacks. None of the kids cried. There was lots of chocoalte cake and beer and laughter. The floor was scattered with toys. People stayed for hours. And when they left, we were smiling, but I felt like an eighteen wheeler had run me over.

* I am now certain I'll be sick tomorrow. I'm not much of an extrovert, though I love to be with people. I need down time, re-charge time, quiet time. Anyone want to come to the mytopography house to be my stunt double for a week while I escape to Canada for somenonstop solid alone time? Life has been kicking my butt lately. Even though it's sweet, and full of moments like these:

Sleep deprived and feeling it

This is winding up to be the fourth night of inconsolable wailing at bedtime, and then again in the middle of the night. The fourth night of rocking until my but is sore, until I’ve sung every song I know, twice. The fourth night of staring blearily at the green lights on the clock at 12:30am, at 12:36am, at 12:48am, and so on until about 2:03pm. The fourth night where DH or I ends up in a compromised sleeping position with a small foot to the jaw. I’m exhausted. And totally at a loss. At first, I thought Bean was teething—and his incisors are coming in. Then I thought it was because he was sick—and he did have a fever. But then his fever went away and his teeth seem fine and he’s still a terror at night—and he’s never been like this. Usually, we have a great little routine: a bedtime story or two, a bath, a warm sippy cup of milk, and then we rock until he falls asleep which is usually about 10 minutes into the program. But for the past week he’s wailed ferociously whenever I move to put him down—stirring from what seems like a deep sleep to protest the transfer from my arms to his crib. And he’s been acting like this for everyone, not just me (for his Gran at nap times, and for DH if he’s the one to rock Bean to sleep.)

I’m not sure what to expect at this age (20 months). I know he’s become suddenly more verbal, and also more exploratory in his defiance (he climbed INTO THE FIREPLACE yesterday which resulted in his first ever time out), but somehow I haven’t quite been able to connect the dots. The fact that I’m sleep deprived hasn’t helped that any, either.

So I’m turning to you yet again, internets—what should I be expecting at this age? I'm at my wits end right now. And. Must. Get. Sleep.

What matters?

The day of Halloween was warm and clear. Sun filtered through the classroom window at an angle, falling in big rectangles of brightness across the carpet and children’s heads as they read. Later, they used orange and black construction paper to make decorations for the classroom, and exchanged small handmade gifts; like Valentines on Halloween. It was one of the few days since September, where I stopped pushing academics and just let the kids be kids. It felt good to watch them cut and paste paper bats and ghosts, to hear their childish voices rising up with laughter, and to settle down in the reading corner with a picture book while most kids were working, to read with a few kids who are usually acting out. It’s hard to do this in the classroom today, with the No Child Left Behind standards based national “accountability” push.

Earlier and earlier kids are being pushed towards the brittle analytical material that numerals and letters make, and away from the things that matter to small children—imaginative play, paint, singing, learning to be kind to one another. I hate having to make this choice each day—between what I know will nurture their souls, and what I must teach so that they can get by with facility in the world of test scores and top-down administrations.

I often ponder the purpose of public education (as a standards based approach to learning whatever is deemed necessary to learn.) Sometimes it feels so much like a very intentional training program to prepare children to become good followers as adults; to think inside the box, to play fair and square and wait their turn, to not shine any brighter than the next kid over.

Sometimes the push to teach six year olds to type, to write whole pages, to read chapter books seems foolhardy. It can be done of course. But why? Is there any research that shows concrete evidence that early mastery of these basic skills is any type of indicator for later success? I don’t know of any, and my own experience speaks to the contrary. I went to a school (Waldorf) where kindergarten and first graders were given space and time to play, to imagine, to paint big pictures, and to wonder. Where fairy tales, and treehouse building went hand in hand with learning the alphabet and how to count. I didn’t learn to read solidly until third grade. Did that stop me? Did it somehow limit my potential? I think not.

Today, after two nights with only 5 hours of sleep (Bean is either going through a bout of separation anxiety or teething—or both, but he’s been inconsolable often throughout the past two nights), I felt my patience wearing thin. I was trying to teach consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel patterns to a group of kids, while somehow, expecting the rest of the kids to be self directed—and they were not (could not be). So when I felt my patience slipping I decided to take them outside instead of getting angry (it was not their fault, they were trying, the stuff is hard to grasp.)

They burst out the door with sheer abandon. And then I watched them revert from being anxious students to care free children.

They built sand box houses for their stuffed animals; they pretended to be driving a space ship; they pumped high on the swings and squealed with pure joy. They were kids. And so often I forget how little they really are—I forget that they imagine their stuffed kittens to be real; or that a tree can become a space ship—and instead I focus on the fact that they need constant remindings to be sitting still at meetings, to be listening, to be writing neatly, to be following directions.

I want to know tonight—what was your first grade experience like? What did you learn? How do you think it affected who you are today? And how (if you elementary school age kids) is your child’s first grade experience different than yours was?

NaBloPoMo

Because I cannot NOT take the bate, and because my stubborn mind-over-matter brain has managed white-out the very important fact that I have thismuch extra time in the day, I have decided to participate in NaBloPoMo ’06. Apparently, I like the idea of having my ass kicked. That, or some terribly pathetic part of my writer’s soul hopes that this will be the needed discipline I need to produce a manuscript for an MFA program by the end of the month.

Either way, I’ll be showing up at the page every day slightly more regularly than I have been; even if it is only to post the indistinguishable string of consonants and vowels is the direct result of pressing one’s forehead into the keyboard in despair.

I posted over at Mama Says Om

This week's theme made me pause. How does it speak to you?

Advice, please

So, here's something about me: I'm shy on first meeting. No one believes me when I tell them that, but it's painfully true. After the first introductions, I'm great. Anyway, why you needed because: down the road a short distance live two teenage girls who I occasionally wave to as we drive past each other, or once in a while, pass running. They look like very nice girls--and definitely potential babysitters. And we NEED a babysitter. Like yesterday. Also, I've talked to their parents once or twice already (and mentioned that we'd love to have their daughters babysit--but nothing came of that casual suggestion.) So here's my question--how should I go about approaching them about babysitting? Call? Stop by? When?

And also--what is the going rate for high school age babysitters? How late can you ask one to babysit? And in general, please provide any other babysitter tips you may have, oh Internets, I implore you.

A Sunday list

... French toast with local syrup ...Freezing rain & sleet

....The power is back on (yesterday it was out nearly all day--a tree down at the end of the road)

...Reading Vanity Fair cover to cover

... Re-reading the underlined parts in favorite books

... Writing lesson plans for the week

.... Hibernating

What are you doing today?

The helter skelter arc of my heart

I took the day off from work, feeling crumpled and exhausted and near-to-tears. Work, post-traumatic stress, and life in general, has me feeling more anxious and more depressed than I have possibly ever felt in my life. Mostly, it’s the whole post-trauma stuff, which seems to permeate everything else. Because I am an optimist, a glass-half-full dreamer, it is unnerving to be here on the brink of sorrow. Doubt, like an unbalanced weight, threatens to pull me over the edge. And perhaps the worst part of this is I’ve always been a mind-over-matter type of person and suddenly I’ve come slamming up against the fact that I can’t just mind-over-matter this all away. My body has internalized the stress of it all, and I’ve been sick in this low-grade kind of way that has me always feeling thin skinned and raw.

So I took the day off and reveled in a morning all to myself—no toddler, no kids all asking for help in unison, no colleagues asking for favors—just me and some writing and a tall frothy latte.

Then I took a nap. It was that weird kind of sleep where semi-consciousness hovers close. Every few minutes I felt like I was almost awake, and, for a moment upon waking after an hour of sleep, I felt sure I had not slept at all. But I had, and the day outside had gone from grey to a perfect autumnal blue.

I took Bean in the backpack for an hour hike through woods, stopping every so often to listen to the sounds of the woods and smell the crisp autumn air. We’d stop, both of us nearly holding our breath, and listen to the sound of water, to the occasional crow calling overhead, and then, suddenly and more than once, to the report of a gun. Damn hunters. I sang softly walking along the spungy trail, not wanting to be mistaken.

Home again, DH and I immediately launched into an argument, that in retrospect had everything to do with the fact that I wanted to be taken care of and hardly anything to do with whatever puppet topic we pulled onto the stage. But later, after I’d left for town he called, and we talked until we came to some sort of understanding, and he met me there for dinner. It was cold out, and I was glad for my down jacket. We at kebabs and crepes from street vendors, and sipped creamy hot chocolate from the local chocolatier, and had a lovely time.

So I guess I’m stubbornly scrabbling out of the hole I’m in. It seems a lot like one step forward, two steps back, but there’s movement, and many exquisite moments. I am grateful for this—that I have not lost my capacity for joy.

(Here are a few pictures, still with the crappy camera.)

Another Morning Poem

Letting Go

I open my hand and the hundred small birds of my heart flutter out, wings rumpled from the tight fist I’ve carried them in.

They fall to the ground before flying up, knowing something of soil and grief.

I can’t shake this feeling now. Nights up, hearing the house move, the small birds flit restlessly about the room, dreaming.

With dawn the birds fly up to the rafters where I cannot reach them.

A morning poem

Like a cold draft from the crack in the lintelthe day of the killing keeps creeping back in; making my heart beat faster, unbidden. All the things I tried to avoid by covering my eyes at the movie theater again and again rush up now, in the quiet moments when I’m there in the dark rocking my son to sleep. Or in those other moments of ordinary things wiping a dish dry, or standing dripping wet after a shower. There is nothing left for me to do but dance off kilter to this new song until I turn the floor boards to tinder and the room becomes suddenly warm with compassion.

1st snow

It snowed this weekend. The first flakes started to fall in long slanting streaks just as evening tucked the valley in. We were inside with a fire going, hanging pictures (finally) on our walls, listening to a Mozart symphony. The next morning, the world was white and golden: a patchwork of the last bright leaves on the trees, and snow in icy piles along the side of the road. Enough for a snowball fight, and full Bean snowsuit regalia. (My camera is still in for repairs. This one, alas, is crap. But you get the idea. It was pretty, and a mostly restful weekend except for an unidentified allergic reaction on my face yesterday. That, and it was about a week too short.)

Because I always root for the underdog

I'm so happy Jeffery won on Project Runway! (My one tv watching obsession is hereby revealed.) I loved his couture dress, and that green striped dress with the exquisite detail. I could ever get up the guts to really let my hair down and dress my inner wild self, I'd wear his clothes. (Stop gasping. I know I never where anything but jeans, and an exciting day for me in fashion is a pair of heeled boots. But just imagine. I'm good at imagining.) Another good thing? I have off the next two days, and am thrilled to have time to hang out with my little guy, and make food, and play with friends, and in genral, catch up on life. Bean seems to have been missing me big time tonight. Every time I'd stop rocking and prepare to put him to bed, thinking he was sound asleep, he'd roust himself and say "grock! grock!" I didn't quite get what he was saying at first, but then I realized it was "rock!" as in, 'keep rocking me mommy." And so I did, humming songs in the dark, and feeling emotions rise and then ebb away as my mind gradually stilled.

Here's to quiet moments, good wins, and long weekends.

Making meaning

My camera, which over the past year has become something like an extension of my eye, is in the shop for repairs, and already I've gone bumbling around the house twice looking for it, forgetting it's not here. It mysteriously started giving me 'error 99' messagesm and I am mourning it's absense. So much to capture with the lense right now. T rain-slicked backs of the water buffalo down the road; the trees, almost leafless, and bending in the wind; the moon like a splash of milk against the gray tablecloth of the stormy night sky. I'm also struggling this week to process the issues that have surfaced around all the school shootings that have happened recently--the one I was in, and the others. I'm trying to find a context for forgiveness, and trying to understand the purpose of such violence and evil--if there is indeed a purpose. I find myself grappling with faith. On one hand, I believe deeply in the intrinsic spiritual nature of the universe, but on the other hand, I feel like the weft has been pulled out from the tapestry of meaning that I've constructed over the past twenty years. I'm left with shreds, and faith is a poor medium for mending rent cloth.

One thing I know: that there is a remarkable power in forgiveness. I've written several posts about the connection I see between forgiveness and generosity. To forgive is a profoundly generous act, and I try to live by this daily, in whatever way I am able. Yet it is hard to have this be enough, when all around me people place blame, point fingers, become angry. I don't know enough about Ghandi, but I'm thinking about him tonight.

In my house, the person who teaches me endless lessons about mindfulness and abundant love, is my son. He's so fun and wild and sweet. His smile is still unadulterated and pure as sunshine--no alterior motive, no secondary list of items to accomplish with his grin. He simply is.

Tonight, it was just the two of us at home with the wind whipping rain into the windows. We painted before bed. I recently bought new tubs of acrylic paint, and used the lids from each container for him to dip his brush into. He made a wild mess. A glorious blur of streaks and color, all over his hands, the page, the floor. I love watching him do this--watching as he tries the color, or explores the way the brush spatters paint.

Being with him asks me to be more. Maybe being a mother it isn't the entire reason, but it's part of the reason I keep coming back to this hard stuff again and again, trying to make meaning, to grow beyond the very small boundaries of my self. Or maybe, being a mother has simply ripped my heart wide open, so I feel everything a little more.

20 months

Dear Bean, You were perfectly behaved. You sat in a little yellow race car chair, and only winced when the hairstylist sprayed water on your hair. Afterwards we celebrated with a vanilla milk and an oatmeal-raisin cookie as big as your face. And just like that you left your baby self behind.

Now we're in a whole new era of things: aiming for the potty, three word sentences, chasing games, and copying everything anyone says or does.

This month you’ve gained weight and grown taller. You reach for things on the kitchen counter now, and you say “thank you” (ta-woo) and ask for “more.” You also seem bigger because with the change of season, you’re wearing snug Thinsulate boots, fleecy hats, and wooly sweaters. The extra layers have not stopped you however, from your new found love of running fast down hill, your arms akimbo, the wind blowing in your hair.

Everywhere on our hillside cinnamon and yellow and vermillion leaves lie in heaps along the edges of the road, and in piles against the old stone walls that zig-zag through our woods. You fall into them, and laugh. You ask to be lifted up to pick apples with both hands, and then you eat them all the way down to the core.

Inside, you play with your new ride-on-top fire truck, and want to be like our cat. When she eats, you throw yourself on your belly next to her dish, and pretend to eat like she does. She isn’t so fond of this, but tolerates it until your adoration for her forces you to throw your body upon her.

In four months you’ll be two. This seems less miraculous to me than a year ago at this time, when I was first contemplating having a 1 year old, and you were on the brink of walking. Somewhere along the way we’ve gotten the hang of being your parents, and we’ve finally learned that your every wail or flushed cheek doesn’t always signify the worst case scenario. People tell me that two is Terrible, and that you’ll become the master of Button Pushing. But I’m not convinced. You are a pretty cool kid, most of the time.

Yes, you do throw perfect jelly-bodied temper tantrums. You melt to the floor, and wail when you don’t want to do something. You know how to shed gigantic crocodile tears. But you also know when we mean business, and you listen. You are sunny natured and easy going. You love to laugh. And somehow, remarkably, you are NEATER THAN YOUR PARENTS.

(Please remember that Daddy and I really will never mind your obsession with putting shoes away, throwing scraps of paper or dust bunnies in the trash, or closing left-open closet doors.)

Love, Mama.

Thursday mosaic

I come in the front door like a river in flood season. The urge to be wrapped up in the embrace of my small sweet family so huge, it pulls me away from meetings today—away from places I should really be, but can’t because my heart is in my throat with love and longing. I swallow hard when I come through the door, and there they are: my two guys. They’re upstairs today, in the rocking chair. Bean’s hair is damp from the quick heat that always rises in him before sleep. I've upset the nap plans.

“Mama!” he calls out, and a smile as bright and pure as the flight of swallows, arcs across the room from him to me. I reach out for him. DH wraps his arms around both of us, and for a minute there we are, just breathing. Then we wrestle on the bed for a while, feeling the weight and warmth of each other.

When we go downstairs we are a flurry of arms and legs and knees, making snack. We’re a tall family, the three of us, and already, Bean’s head comes up above the dining room table. He’s standing on the rungs of the stool now, by the counter, wanting to help me make chocolate milk and peanut butter and jelly tortilla roll-ups. The light outside is perfect: the last of the maples are the most exquisite hue of orange in the late afternoon sun, and the light falls across the room in long slanting rays.

We go for a walk along our dirt road which is thick with new mud from the first real rains of autumn. They say snow is in the forecast for tomorrow, but I can’t believe it. Today the air has that perfect crispness to it, not too cold, but sharp enough to make you feel alive. We walk a little over a mile to where the cattle are grazing in knee-high mist. Among them are two water buffalo that are quite friendly, and when they see us, they amble over, grunting in their earthy way. They lick the salt off our hands with their rough tongues, and eye Bean curiously in his running stroller. We promise to bring them windfall apples next time.

On the way back, we walk with our arms around each other’s waists the way we used to do in college and it makes me smile.

In contrast

Trying to remember what it felt like to lie still against the rock, to turn my face towards the sun, to be wholly in the moment, like I was in this picture with Bean scampering up and down the rock beside me. The air was cool and sweet with the smell of autumn: wood smoke, drying grass, the spicy scent of maple leaves and concord grapes, and the musky smell of manure being spread on the fields.

In contrast, I spent today indoors, watching the sun move across the square diorama of my window, sending long rectangles of bright and shade onto the carpet and tables and the tousled heads of kids. It was a PMSy, moody day with near-tears moments and and no-reason exhaustion by the end. Sometimes the sheer volume of 20 little kids is enough to drive me up a wall. My head reverberates and I feel utterly fragmented. Then I realize I haven’t eaten in hours. On days like today I catch myself longing to be teaching college students—longing to be that me I’ll be in five or six years from now.