September mornings
The weather has been perfect. The leaves falling, every day more, until the ground has become a kaleidoscope of red and yellow. Days are filled with small things that make me be right here. Pomegranates are in season. The wood is stacked, cords deep, and our new wood stove arrived; fire-engine red, tucked into a corner in the dining room. Apples are tangy and sweet now, and on the tree beyond the kitchen window they look like the burnished red beads on some old woman’s necklace. The air’s still sweet and noisy with the end of summer: crickets at night, and the last cut of hay, but there is a bite to the mornings.
Sometimes I want fragments. Short phrases. Words in the loop of a poem; the dangling thought of an elipsis; the wanton lust of the run-on. Sometimes I can't say things all the way, the way they are. Instead, the feeling is simply there, welling up. Like woodsmoke in the air, or the red streak of the tanager. This week I want to return to something I did last September. A poem a day. A morning poem. Whatever words come to mind to paint the colored arc of soul and dreams across the page. Tomorrow, first thing, with a steaming mug and the fog rising, I'll scatter careless armfuls of words like autumn leaves. Will you join me?
Enmeshed in forward motion
In the Pacific ocean, 1996.This afternoon I sat among boxes in my studio and dug through relics (an attempt at organizing, gone very far tangent.) I found pictures of high school boyfriends; letters; collages. All small fragments of who I was then, different, yet still me, in ridiculous cut-off shorts and too-large plaid shirts (thank you Nirvana.)
It felt so funny looking back---feeling the way time arcs like electricity, fast and slow between now and then. It seems so impossible to me sometimes, that we can only go forwards. That we can only live today and maybe tomorrow, but never yesterday again. Those romances, back then when I wore converse high tops and baggy jeans were so sweet and achingly awkward. They were all good guys, and I still know most of them. Some, I’m still close friends with, which says a lot about the both of us, I think. But even though we're friends, and we talk and share pancakes when they come to visit my little family here up on our hill, we can still only go one-way: always towards the future. We’ll never be able to slip back into the skin of our past selves—there on the rocky coast, posing for the camera on self-timer in wind-rumpled blue parkas; or there on the cobbled streets of Florence, in hiking boots and backpacks.
Riffling through the box of artifacts I felt myself slip up above like a helium balloon on a string. Suddenly with a birds-eye-view: there I am, in the middle of my life. That is how it has all turned out. That man. That small boy. That house. And not those other men, despite their earnest efforts, and big hearts. It felt like time travel, seeing my name, printed out on numerous envelopes. My maiden name. Those consonants now grown unfamiliar on my tongue.
Has anyone else ever felt like this? Startled, for a brief moment, or surprised, to find yourself right where you are? Not that it could be any different, or that I would want it to. Simply that time moves on, and that on a rare instant I see how I am enmeshed in its shimmering net, the tide pulling steadily forwards, and regardless of my loves and my discrepancies, and I arrive each day, a little further on.
Pell-mell Tuesdays
Every minute of the day was allocated for something. Gah! Do you ever have days like that? I'm still getting the hang of it, and mostly I suck. If left to my own devices I'd be the haphazard, spontaneous, bohemian Aquarius that I am, to the core. I’d forget to eat, and then have pancakes for dinner; I’d write for hours on end and skip washing my hair; I’d sit in cafés to people watch past 10pm, and loose count swimming laps at the pool. But because I am not left to my own devices, I sometimes struggle to stay afloat of the waves of laundry, the books that need reading, the posts that need writing, the drafts that need revising, the kids that need shoe tying, and the small boy who needs smooching. Not to mention the big one. Who I feel like I've barely seen this week. I hate crossing paths, barely. I hate when we only sink into each other's arms in bed. When the entire day is parceled out.
Not all days are like this, but Tuesdays for some reason often are.
What was your Tuesday like? And also, what would you be like if left to your own devices?
Celebrating right now
DH's birthday comes two days after our anniversary—not our wedding anniversary, but our first-got-together one. Eight years. Pretty cool to know someone for nearly a decade, and to feel like time has flown.
Is this what it feels like forever? Time speeding up exponentially with each rotation of earth around sun? Until decades tumble down upon each other, and thus is a life? Is this really how it goes? Each moment so full, so poignant, so messy and rich and joyous, that it all seems like yesterday. I look at Bean, our shiny-eyed rascal of a boy, and I can’t see a baby in him any more. He’s all little boy. Rough and tumble and sweet. It makes me catch my breath.
We spend so much time looking forward to things, and then, so much time looking back. The moments in between, before the fruit is picked, before the seeds are spit. Sheer present; so hard to hold.
Winnowing at the surface
Each day is a fracture landscape of moments we intend and moments we do not. There is so much reaction in my day; so many times I’ll carry something from one end of the house to the other without thinking about it; or worse, say words I don’t really mean. More than words, it is tone that oozes with the organ-dark mess of moods.
Especially breaking back into a daily routine structured by necessity: earlier wake-up times, more to accomplish within the falling sand of every hour, I watch my energy and effort splinter off. I remember certain things while others leave me almost as soon as they happen. Like steam from a mug of tea; or summer’s heat once autumn has arrived.
Maybe I’m shallow. Maybe I am hardwired to be more resilient: able to move forward shaking off the past that has drenched every pore. I’m not sure. I do know that there are times when I need to be more conscious—especially with DH. We so easily hook each other into little spats. Small words that tailspin, ripping context to shreds. I nearly always take his bait. A sentence flung sideways.
The worst part is that often right in the middle of it, when I’m still bristling with ego and unwilling to back down, I cannot quite, entirely, recall the words that were said. I tag too much on tone, too much on gesture. I remember the context but not the specific content. I assume too much.
And then in the blurry high-moon dark I’m dream-soaked and restless, making up for lost clarity. I skate across the surface of sleep like a water-bug; not really in the water, not entirely above it either. I’m grateful for morning, and early quiet of the house as the sun slowly rises, pulled from behind the mountains like a marionette. The trees are dappled with gold. Each day more leaves turn the color of fire and persimmon. Deer apples, small and round, are sweet and tangy on the trees. I’ve promised Bean we’ll gather them and make an apple pie.
Rabbit-hole days
I’ve been feeling empty word-wise, and it almost feels like a betrayal. Flat screen, flat words; the keystrokes brittle and familiar as I pound out paragraphs. Especially here, I feel a new emptiness. The recent combination of less comments and more visibility has made me hesitant to write about the small mundane things in my life that I’ve filled posts with before. I’ve started to wonder if people care what my days consist of, the moments packing in one after another until the bushel basket of each day is full to overflowing. Maybe it’s a feeling of overextension. I’ve written so much from my point of view, I feel like I have nothing new to say. It’s the end of summer here. Leaves on the first of the sugar maples are turning fire engine red and burnished orange. We’ve had a few damp days, humidity hanging in the air until afternoon thunderstorms send the moisture raining down in sheets.
When we walk in the meadow, insects scatter. Fat grasshoppers, praying mantis. I’ve been looking for monarch caterpillars to bring into my classroom and at first thought they’d made cocoons early and had already metamorphosed and flown south; no sign of them on the milkweed clustered along the edge of the lane down to the pond. But looking closely I found some, so tiny they were barely visible at all. Just as long as my pinky fingernail is wide. Little horns and stripes, eating holes stained white with milk on the fat green leaves.
I gathered them up, a dripping milkweed caterpillar bouquet, and carried them home. Now they’re eating their way through leaves and leaving poop at the bottom of a glass jar on my windowsill. Tomorrow they’ll travel to school with me; and soon, they’ll grow accustomed to the eager eyes and hot breath of children. So will I.
See? This is all I have to say. Summer has done me in. I’m languorous and scattered. In my studio I’ve started a new canvass, several feet wide. I have more energy right now for color, for wild brush strokes and the haphazard following of whimsy that paint provides, than for the record keeping of my days. I’m thinking though that with this exhaustion of my own perspective fiction will come easier. I find myself looking forward to when I can sit down to write through another lens, a different window. To hold open the doorway to another person’s heart, though invariably, it leads back to the corridors of my own. But I haven’t had time yet to sink into even this.
My new routine hasn't taken shape yet. I need a week, or two, to fall back onto the trampoline of early morning writing and jam-packed days. Until then, I’m all over the place, trying to get other things done. Stacking a woodpile, replanting azaleas, buying paint to redo the livingroom in sunny acorn.
And because I’ve been lackluster about posting and even more so in commenting on all of your blogs, there’s been a lull in this small corner of the interweb and I miss your comments, your snappy, snarky, encouragement. Perhaps all this to say, I’m ready for summer to be over? Ready for a shift. A new direction. I’m not sure. I love the sun-drenched days, and I feel nervous about winter. But I feel like I’ve slipped down a rabbit hole, having sunk so entirely into the present of my days.
Back to alarm clock wake ups
Back to waking up when the sky is stained pink and the birds are loudest. Back to those first blurry moments of dawn, watching my guys sleep nose to nose like racoons. Back to work. And definitely not into the swing of things yet. I'll resurface soon. Please don't go away.
Toddler love
Just now as I sat down to write, Bean came up to me with a dishtowl. He'd been playing with his digger in the kitchen. I'm in the livingroom, sunk deep into the comfy white armchair, my feet up, sun slanting in through the bay window where I keep all my potted plants. He said, "I gonna clean your feet, mama."
And then he gently wiped down my feet and legs with the towel. He then proceeded to tenderly kiss my legs and ankles. Hovering especially over my 'owies'--the small scars from recent and not so recent encounters with blackberry bushes or bike pedals.
I had no idea love could feel like this.
Stupid deleted post.
Stupid tabbed browser windows. A whole post deleted. Full of good sentences, including cookie crumbles and random ramblings. ARGH!
Spontaneous delight
Spent some quality family time the past few days. Downtown, eating nutella & coconut crepes on a park bench, people watching yesterday evening. The day before we were there running errands, and ended by ordering iced chocolates from the local chocolatier shop, and then stopping to watch a motley group of b-boys (break dancers) put on a show. Totally awesome. Bean loved every minute. Today we passed more than an hour of time in a local greenhouse/garden center that has a lovely little cafe with tables among the greenhouse plants. Nothing like eating a fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato sandwiches under hanging baskets of bromeliads by a quoi pond. Made a mental note to self: go here in the middle of winter, often!
I love days like this where we’re all together, getting things done, and then we tangent off into something unexpected. Little spontaneous bursts of delight. Most of the morning was spent at the tile store—we’re building a hearth for our new woodstove, to be arriving in a few weeks. It will be fire-engine red, and toasty. Cannot wait.
What have you all been up to? Do you have any favorite little places to go that bring you delight?
Here goes...something
Every year the fledglings learn this: at some point the nest of twigs and thistle down and the blue ribbon from last year’s presents is not enough. The dappled rustling shade of further branches beckon. The wide arc of sky, streaked with wind and sunbeams becomes a daily siren song. And then the day arrives when they must make a willing leap into the empty air despite having never flown before.
It feels like this, linking my writing over at Parent Dish to here. At once both terrifying and certain, it has always been the natural order of things. The work of showing up at the page here was always with this is in mind. Writing here was an attempt stake out a claim on behalf of my writing within my own heart. A way of saying yes, this is possible, this is the future of my longing.
You have to start somewhere to get to somewhere, and this is where I began, words running long across paragraphs, photographs, no-post days.
It’s incredibly vulnerable to think that more people from my ‘real life’ and my work life will inevitably find me here and find the archives of fights with my husband, the heartache of winter longing, the sallow listless words just before spring, and the posts filled with poop and wonder and breastfeeding that have been my personal history as a new mama.
I didn’t have to link here. Yet not doing so felt like it would be a cop-out. The finch opting to hop about on the forest floor instead of taking flight. It would have reeked with self doubt, not to stand by what I’ve written. The many thousand words here are deeply personal, but also good. I’m proud of how this almost-daily practice of finding something to say here has shaped my writer’s voice in a new way. Your comments, and the emails I gratefully receive, have given me the first inkling of audience, and also courage to say more. No point stopping now. No point hovering at the edge of the quivering twig.
Ready, get set...
In nineteen different places today, all at once. The sky is blue, but winds are roaring up our valley making the birch leaves show their silver underbellies. By my computer on the bar in the kitchen are a row of ripe peaches. Outside hawks are calling. It's getting ready time: laminating folders and organizing books, every random hour spent at school in preparation for a new passel of kids. Also trying to find the right things to say to Bean so that he understands that our routine will be changing. We've had such a fun summer: taking rambling walks and playing on the back lawn. Here are some pictures from our walk yesterday evening.
Chicken coop in the evening light.
Goldenrod is waist high in the fields now.
Bean & his red wagon.
Wild grapes, ripening.
Slug love.
I love ferns.
Overgrown mailbox.
Bean in the green.
Jewel weed.
Autumn's first red.
Tuesday Notebook
Kneel down, hold the ground in your hands
or reach up and hold meteors in your glance
as they plummet through the dark night.
Be thankful.
***
Simply: I spent the weekend house hunting with my inlaws and the experienced left me awed, drained, curious. People live their lives in so many different ways, and their homes carry the expression of their lives so deeply. The timbers gradually soak up the emotion of day to day interactions, the windows, the corner tables, the hues on the walls all start telling a version of the life story of the people who dwell there.
But mostly, I left grateful that we've found this place up on our hill. I stand at the window of my studio looking out and my heart fills. The ember red of the little barn/chicken coop we just renovated; the dusty ocher of the blowing meadow grasses; the first hint of red at the tips of the maples; the sweeping view. I feel at home here in a way I never have felt anywhere before, and it is a hungry feeling of wanting to sink in. Be more present here. Take more walks. Notice.
Two nights ago we sat in lawn chairs on the driveway looking up at the bowl of stars, partly obscured with stars. Meteors with glimmering tails streaked across the dark. It’s a place I could be for a while, I think. Among the maples and the beeches and the goldenrod that has grown chest high in the lower meadow, where the coyotes and the owls nightly call.
Do you have a place that makes you feel at home like this? A park, a city street, a vast swath of land that's yours? Or are you thirsty with longing like I was for years before here?
And also, who wants to do some art with me every day this week?
Sunday doings
Eating french toast, house hunting with the inlaws, listening to the crickets, chasing the chickens (we think one is a rooster) out of the flower beds, counting down the days (eight) until I go back to work, planning hikes, planning big art pieces, thinking of tie-dying (has anyone done it? tips?), thinking of re-painting my studio (again), and scheduling a massage. What are you doing?
Tumbling towards start
The last few weeks of summer before the start of the school year make me feel like a tumbleweed; aimless and windblown, with so many things up in the air, and without the routine of work. I laugh, realizing that I’ve arrived at this point: ready to go back. I miss a routine, even though I’m not good at exacting one upon my cantaloupe eating summer days. Over the vactation I’ve managed to slow down enough, unwind enough, to start missing the days of waking up early to sip something warm and write before heading off to work. Now more than ever I need that structure. I need to get started on the forty pages I’ll be exchanging with my writing group in December, and starting this week I’ll also be posting over at Parent Dish.
I like the tingly feeling I get contemplating how with each progressive step I’m sinking more deeply into my commitment towards writing. And also, trepidation.
There’s no better way to get started than to simply sit down and get started, this much I know. But I have a particularly hard time with this. Introductions. First days. First words on the page. First weeks of a new routine. The beginning of anything is something that time sets me on edge and makes me resistant. I drag my feet. Think up every reason in not to jump in. And then, invariably, I finally do.
But what is it about starting that’s so hard? There’s something in those first moments that’s raw and unpredictable. It’s an act of throwing yourself off the cliff, of leaping into the blue space of air and unknown. My heart thuds in my chest when I sit down, poised, ready, my fingers hovering above the keys. Does this happen to anyone else?
A dare
Here’s why: You will not always be the age you are today, and someday you, or someone who loves you will want to look at these pictures, lingering over the way you looked so beautiful right in that moment, in good light with the wind in your hair.
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. How life moves at an exponential speed. When you’re two, one year is half your life. When you’re thirty—a year is one thirtieth. Time compresses, blurs, flutters, but always moves forwards, and with it, you. Always changing. Who you are right now will be a smudge on the window of memory in a handful of years. Take some pictures. Like a watermark or a timestamp. Something to remind you. What are you like, right now?
I’m at this point in my life where I’ve just started to notice that I’m aging. Tiny crows feet dance at the corners of my eyes; a furrow between my brows forever marks the way I frown. Some days, when I kneel in front of the mirror with my little boy, his skin fresh and flawless, I am startled by how changed I am. How old I look. Of course, I know that for someone a dozen or two years older than I, nearly thirty is spring-chicken young. But that’s what I mean: sometimes in the moment it’s hard to just appreciate.
So go do it.
Back from camping
Perfect weather. Fun in the water. Beach reading. Stone skipping. Sticky marshmallow fingers. Rowdy neighbors (totally annoying.) Stars above us. Campfire smoke in the air. Pancakes with fresh raspberries. Time out on the water canoing. (Bean FELL ASLEEP in the canoe~ twice!) Overall, a wonderful first camping adventure with the little guy.
The start of August
With the first of August I slipped back into accomplishing mode: tearing through lists of things that have been lingering all summer and forcing myself to return to the page to edit work that has been lingering, troublesome as a hangnail since June. I also snagged a fun writing job I’ll be telling you more about very soon; and am crossing my fingers that another piece of mine will be showing up in Mothering in a month.
More good news? My inlaws sold their house—and will be moving up to take care of Bean in a few months. Whenever they’re around, I always notice Bean’s language skills skyrocket: Nonna never stops talking to him, and he’s smitten with the both of them.
To celebrate, we’re going camping with Bean on Saturday! His first real trip. We’re packing life vests and sunscreen, marshmallows and hotdogs. In the mail, a glorious four-person tent arrived and when we set it up on the lawn, Bean was ecstatic. Of course I will take nine-million pictures and foist them on you.
The crickets have started their tremolo, indicating that summer really is winding down. August is the hottest month here, but already the first yellow leaves have appeared, and monarchs are gathering on the milkweed, roadside. Next week I’ll head back to my classroom, painting bookcases, sorting papers. I had my first classroom dream last night. I always have them in August before I meet my new class.
What’s in store for you this August?