For the record

I’m not sure why I feel compelled to write about the messy sharp-edged rawness; skies the color of cement, thunder storms, evening clouds ripped to shreds and stained vermillion with the setting sun. Except to say that I write because these things matter, and my words are like the layers of snow buried within a glacier of all the winters that have come before. Maybe it’s because I want to know that I was here, that we were, again and again. I want others to know this too; perhaps to offset the Hollywood happily ever after we’re all fed as teenagers.

As a culture we spin so many myths and prick ourselves in the process like the princess in Sleeping Beauty. We easily fall into a slumber of illusion, the roses growing thick around us, all those velvet petals and sweet fragrance blurring our view of the thorns that grow there too. We lie about our happiness, over and over again. Perhaps we cannot help ourselves.

Flip through any magazine, and without fail there are the glossy images of women defying death: skin taught and unwrinkled, eyes bright as they stare dreamily into the eyes of some muscular man poised to sweep them off their feet (or at an equally dreamy handbag.) The illusion is complete: beauty, possessions, money—these things make you happy.

I remember when my husband and I were camping in Puerto Rico long before we were married. We were both in college still. It was spring break. The sand was like sugar and flecked with shells. The water bluer than blue. Every evening postcard perfect clouds in rose and choral decorated the sky just for us. We were in love. Naturally we decided to spend a night sleeping under the stars right there on the beach, without a tent, just us, and our sleeping bags zipped together and partly open to the warm night air, our naked bodies tangled and salty from playing all day in the waves.

How many times have you seen the image of lovers sleeping on the beach—or making love for that matter, hip deep in salt water, her shirt white and wet hugging the alluring curves of her firm round breasts? Enough times to believe it, right? Well it fucking sucks in actuality. Sleeping on the beach feels like being rubbed down with sandpaper. Sand in every crevice: eyelids, nostrils, ears, unmentionable places. There are also sandf flies and the endless worry of an unusually high tide.

Sometime after midnight when the full moon was directly above us and we both finally stopped pretending to be blissfully asleep, DH turned to me, “Wanna go back to the tent?” he asked. Hell yes. Still we kind of felt like romantic failures--until we burst into uncontrollable laughter, and rolled together into a heaving heap in our tent.

But isn’t that what we learn? That true love, true happiness, and a real romantic marriage is always happy and glamorous and exquisite. The beach is never really sandy. There are never any sand flies, or sunburn or yeast infections or heartache or ego.

So I write about the days when things are tense and the friction feels like the sand felt on my sunburned skin.

Maybe by circling back to these moments I create a different illusion—that my marriage is fraught with conflict, which is hardly the case. There is so much sweetness between us, so many moments jam-packed with goodness like this morning, when we went to the farmers market and wandered around grinning at each other licking cinnamon and sugar from our fingers. So many hours, days, weeks even, when we fit together like seals basking on salty rocks: effortless in our play and our contentment.

But I want to record the other times too, because they are hard. Because growth never comes from the moments of easy pleasure. Growth comes when the ache is greatest, when wanderlust and terror swell equally in my chest and I choose instead to stay, to say I’m sorry, and to grow with this man at my side. Again and again and again.

One of those days

This morning, racing to the toilet in an attempt to avoid vomiting all over the floor, I ended up smacking myself in the face with the toilet seat cover. Hard enough to bruise myself.

Crying + vomit. What could be better? Sigh.

Milestone

DH and I went to our first ever parent night tonight. Our Bean is suddenly a big kid, a school goer with teachers and routines. I couldn't help the feeling in my chest: like a hundred silver minnows all darting at once this way and then that. I couldn't help feeling shy and overwhelmed, and at my side, DH equally shy and overwhelmed. It seems so official, going to parent night. And also, the end of something.

The end of moments where his orbit is only family; the arc of his moods, willy-nilly with glee or tumbling with gloomy sorrow at some slight wrong, only ours to witness.

Now he's out there in the world, navigating friendships and expectations and the contents of his school lunch box. And it makes breath catch in my throat.

He has the sweetest teacher imaginable (who, by the way, volunteered to email me every single day to let me know how his day went--because I can never come to pick up to read the daily journal. How awesome is that?) And on his school days he wakes up early and full of smiles like bright slices of oranges.

Still.

And also, I think I'm feeling flutters of the baby kicking--but not regular flutters---and I am wondering when it's normal to start feeling regular movement? I can't remember what I felt last time--in fact the only thing I remember about my last pregnancy was my gag reflex in response to the smell of catfood; my hatred of maternity clothing, and very little else.

finding my way back...

...To doing art. Another thing I've taken a long hiatus from. I have a list, scribbled on a piece of scrap paper, of things I need to pick up at the art store. In my absense, my gel medium has dried up. Brushes are in disrepair (having been well loved by Bean) and and my India Ink has grown hard in the bottom of it's square glass jar.

I can't say why or when I stopped. Just did, and then the weeks became months, and my soul was elsewhere. Maybe with words on the page? In any case, it felt good to slip back into paint and glue and ink and graphite, making something without editing; the inexact phrase of the image.

What have you left off or forgotten or taken a break from?

I want to remember this

As I'm working in my new studio, Bean is in his new room playing with his new trains. He's been playing for the past 45 minutes. From the hall I hear is soft little voice floating towards me, as he talks to himself, and sings songs about trains to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He's gotten so big and independent suddenly, with this shift to sleeping in his big-boy bed all through the night. Now he runs down the hall to tell me that the "engines are all in the roundhouse and the cars are all outside." Then he adds, with a sneaky little grin, "one of the engines can fly!"

Seeing my paints set up on my workbench, he says, "I want to paint!" I remind him that I've set up an easel in his room, taping a large piece of butcher paper to the floor with painters tape to make a kid-friendly workspace. "Oh yeah," he says, and runs off to fill up a jar of water. The next thing I hear is him singing, as he puts bold brushstrokes of purple and turquoise onto the paper.

This new maturity and independence makes me think that yes, possibly, I will be able to parent two. I'm still terrified of it, even as I feel the first fin-fluttering kicks of the baby in my womb and grin. It seems so three-ring-circus. So non-stop. So topsy-turvy to have two. But then, watching Bean, I know he will be a great big brother--and he's so thrilled to be having a sibling soon. He draws pictures of our family "and the baby."

Things will be different this time, for sure. We're not newbies. We're parents already, comfortable in our roles. When Bean was first born for the longest time I felt like I was an imposter. Especially pushing his stroller. This is not my life, I'd think. Still, I can hardly imagine those first months again. Those months where sleep is a mosaic of fragments. Where the days are blured and sharp edged. Moments of milky breath, dolphin squeaks, and gummy grins.

Will I ever feel ready before it happens? Or is it like diving, you only know you can do it, after you've leapt, sailed through the air, and broken the surface of the water below.

Small big things

It was our unnoficial anniversary yesterday (first date.) Nine years. We ate Mexican on the waterfront, with a perfect sunset and perfect weather. Now the remnants of hurricane Hannah bring rain and thunder. I'm so in love with my man. Still. More than ever. He's like good wine.... He's aged well. He's hotter, more confident, kinder, and more thoughtful than when I met him. In other small big news, we just got back from buying lots of track and trains to add on to Bean's collection--a reward for the momentous milestone: he's slept in his OWN BED all night for the past five nights. We moved his room--and his new room (my old studio space) is so cozy and snug and fun. He loves the bright sepia walls, the gabled ceilings, and a new soft rug to play on. And remarkably, he was game to sleep in his bed the whole night--waking up to check that his nightlight was on, and then going back to sleep.

This is huge. This is beyond huge. At the beginning of the week, after his first successful night, we celebrated with cupcakes (homemade, from Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess) with purple frosting. I figured: anything to sweeten the deal. And it seemed to work.

But perhaps underneith it all, he was just ready. He was like that with all his milestones: throwing out his pacifier for good at 10 months; weaning at 16 mos; potty training effortlessly at about 18-24 mos. It's something to remember about him--when he's really ready, it won't be a struggle.

Isn't this true for everyone though? So much of what makes things a struggle daily is that we don't feel ready, we feel rushed, croweded, over-booked, over-worked, frazzled. If we have adequate time to wrap our heads around things, it's not so hard to get everything accomplished, and then some. Or at least that's how it is for me. And this is partly why I took a blogging break. I needed more time in my days.

Time to just be with my guys, and to settle into the pace of teaching again. Time to treat myself gently (I'm still feeling iffy, the nausea still creeps up every day at some point.) Time to make purple cup cakes and redecorate and take naps with DH while Bean is at his grandparents house. And it's been good. I needed to slow down, though it's not something I do naturally.

Still I missed blogging. Missed teasing out little snippets of my day into the yarn of sentences, the fabric of paragraphs. I missed the quirky dialogue that takes place here in the comments (the Internet = my only source of parenting advice, for one.)

And today when we hauled a huge bag of clothing to Plato's Closet to try and sell them, we were told, "These [five items] are the only ones we could take. The rest are too mature in style." And immediately, I thought of you. Because who else can I go to and whimper: THE LADY AT PLATO'S CLOSET JUST CALLED US OLD.

Am I old?

Damn. I guess I am. Old enough that my bag of cast-offs (lots of unwanted gifts from well-meaning relatives) aren't trendy enough for a second hand store. Oh well. Goodwill was happy for them, and either way, my closet has way more space.

I'll stop whimpering immediately if anyone has any good tips on where to buy maternity clothes that don't cost boatloads? Because my belly is popping out (way faster than with Bean) and even the Bella Band I'm starting to feel like a sausage.

Some of where I've been...

I'm not gone...

... Just taking a break. So much to tell you about. I'll be back by the end of the week (if not before.)

xoxo!

big skies

Big skies. Scarlet Gilia and Indian Paintbrush. Writing. It's where I'll be all week.

Saturday ::

Went to sleep last night with the dizzy images of the Olympic opening ceremony.The awe-inspiring precision, the vastness, the almost eery unison of the performers left me feeling both wonder-filled and anxious. The little children, handing the Chinese flag over to the soldirers... shivers. Woke up to sun. The twelfth day of sun all summer. For real.

French toast and a iced latte. I may be turning a corner (though I feel queasy right now.) Then I finished painting my new studio space upstairs, before dinner with freinds downtown. Play in the fountain. Street artists. Good times.

Friday ::

* An iced decaf latte tasted good today. This is miraculous.

* Bought orchids for my new studio space (we're shuffeling rooms, repainting, etc.)

* My pants no longer fit, but I'm not really showing. In other words, I look chubby around my middle. So attractive. It's all about the bella band now.

* Am excited to watch the Olympics tonight. They always get me motivated to do sports and to take better care of myself. Ironically--last time I was watching the summer Olympics, Bean was in my tummy.

* Bean used the words "actually" and "absolutely" in the same sentence today. It made me giggle. Now he's digging gravel on the driveway with the geese looking on.

* I've decided all the little things matter. In a year from now I'll forget what being pregnant was like. For the next little while, I'll be focusing on minutia :) and perhaps starting to draw every day objects again. It's somehow very grounding to bring my attention back to the little things. To take notice of food, small moments, errands, conversations.

Thursday ::

More thunder. The kind that rips things. That takes your breath away. That follows the same jagged streak through the sky that the lightneing took.

Feeling slightly better today, but terrified that if I say so the horrible morning sickness gods will smite me down.

Watched the end of So You Think You Can Dance tonight, and every bone in my non-dancer body wishes I were a dancer. People tease me for loving the show--but they can only be people who haven't watched. Because it's not just entertainment, it's art. Some of the dance pieces tonight made my breath catch. Its one of the few things I'd do differently if I could do my life over again. I'd dance. Instead I grew up in a very quiet home without any music that even remotely had a beat (read: my parents only played Vivaldi) and hence I have zero rhythm. Yet watching dance makes my heart sing.

If you could do something differently--if you could do your life over again--what would you do?

Wednesday ::

I felt reasonable today, and as a result accomplished seven times what I have been typically accomplishing every day. As in: completed & turned in 2 manuscripts, finished an article, and completely set my classroom up. That last part took me almost the whole day. My back is rediculously sore from pushing metal desks and bookshelves around. I snagged to boys on custodial duty to move the really heavy stuff, but the rest I did myself. It's too hard to try and visualize classroom feng shui with two teenage boys gawking about.

While I was sorting books rainclouds gathered. Suddenly it was ominously black out my window. Then the rain came pelting down in sheets. The smell of ozone came through the open windows, and then a crack of thunder so close I jumped. On the way home I passed the tree the lightening had hit. A huge branch had cleaved off an old maple--and had wrapped itself entirely around an electrical line. One thing New England weather isn't is boring.

Also: Bean just went and got his shoes and then left the house with his guitar (an old beaten up acoustic guitar we've had around forever) saying "I'm leaving to go to a concert so I won't be able to go to bed tonight. The concert will be really really long and I'll be out really late."

I have absolutely no idea where he got that idea.

Micro blogging

So I've been both rediculously busy and rediculously sick. Still. Isn't that sad? But in my state of near dispair I came up with a good idea: micro blogging. Of course twitter already came up with the idea, and I'm just a lame copy cat, but I decided that I'm going to try this month to blog as much as possible, about all the little things that I keep saying "I should write this down or I'll forget," and then I promptly forget. Like this: Bean, in a conversation about how you can tell the difference between boys and girls said: "Girls have hair that goes flowing down. Boy's hair mostly flows up. Occasionally boy's hair goes flowing down too though." Direct quote. Yes, he used the word occasionally. Can YOU think of a better three year old definition?

Or this: It is thundering every single minute right now. Not big huge cracks of thunder, but little bursts. The sky is pale and overcast, and of course, it has been raining. It has so far rained every single day in August.

And also this: for two days I felt better. I had an iced latte (tall) made by DH with maple syrup. It was divine. He also made biscuits (from scratch) and eggs. Everything tasted rediculously good. I was heady with the possibility of feeling like myself again. I accomplished eighty-nine things including starting to paint my new studio/office space (deep blue.) And then crash. Yesterday I was a miserable ball of ick. Beyond depressing.

Alright. That's it. I'll be back today. See, micro blogging means I am basically going to write everything down in little bursts like the thunder. We'll see how long it lasts. A month? Maybe? (If I have internet in Colorado.) Anyone want to join me?

what do you do?

What do you do when your kid is over tired. You know this as surely as you know it's raining. He skipped his nap. Falls apart before dinner over a cracker, over putting his sweatshirt on, over cleaning up his blocks. What do you do when you make every attempt to put him to bed early on time, and you give him an extra long bath because it should calm him down...but by bedtime he is tightly wound. Over tired. Stubborn. He doesn't like the songs you sing. He kicks his legs in your general direction. He wails when you leave after your promised one song and a snuggle. He gets up and follows you to the door, screaming, sobbing. Do you give in? Do you go back and calm him because you know he's tired? Or do you insist, and not give in--this tantrum likely to lead to others. Bedtime already prolonged enough. What do you do? Because I don't honestly know lately. He's at this new stage, and its requiring all the patience I've got.

Snapshot

Two years ago today I was watching gold finches and feeling rain. I was moving from rumpled sheets to shower, feeling my body linger on the cusp of sleep deprivation in the midst of Bean’s early toddlerhood. One year ago I was eating peaches and watching finches and feeling ready for anything. It’s funny, having a blog. It makes you return to your former selves, finding where you were at on this day or that, a year ago or two. It snares small moments in the weft of life; keeps them there even after memory grows fickle and occupied with greater things than the small fragments of a day.

I’m in such a different place this year, my body doing this crazy and miraculous thing. I’m sensitive and distracted and sporadic. Everyday is like the twirling flight of the bats I watch every evening. They come from within the eaves, darting about in the melon colored light of after sunset.

I’m unsettled, even as I’m content. I have this ridiculous urge to nest, to dig in, to just be in this small corner of land, and it feels so out of character to just want to be here. But the thought of traveling makes me want to tuck my knees to my chest and move closer to the softest pillows on the couch.

Here is all I want, with my cat curled next to me, her gentle purr making the air vibrate along my thigh. Yet I am hungry—for more than just this: curling towards myself, protective and quiet.

Hungry for art. I’ve spent so long without it, I feel an unfamiliar resistance at the thought of gathering up glue and scissors and paint. Hungry for running, and while I’ve gone for several runs recently, the days are too unpredictable and filled with nausea to make any of it a routine. Hungry for good food.

Inexplicably, I feel like I’m in a state of limbo now, a nine month limbo waiting for this little one.

Will it always feel this way? Like I’m holding my breath, like the two small lines of the pause icon have been stamped across my days? I am holding my breath, waiting, at the very least for this nausea to stop. It makes me a husk of myself. I linger in bed mornings without the gusto to rise.

It has also been a summer of rain which has left us always on tiptoe expecting summer to start. The grass is verdant and waist high in the meadows, but the air is always damp. Every day thunder. Every day out the window I watch the rain come up the valley towards us: a steel gray cloud against the paler blue of the summer sky. It arrives quickly, thrashing the leaves and pelting the windows.

And the garden, well, it’s rampant and wild. Tomato plants as high has my shoulders; little orange cherry tomatoes as sweet as sugar; beef steaks still green, and five other kinds, all in various stages of ripening. Beans by the colander full (should I blanch and freeze them?) Basil to be made into pesto; empty beds waiting where the peas and broccoli were—waiting for late summer seeds and early autumn crops, while I stay indoors writing, a deadline and a trip to Colorado for more writing with Pam before the month is out.

In late June the sky was light at nine. Now at quarter-to the sky is already indigo and the insects rattle their warning: summer is ending. Already, passing over the bridge at the end of the road, I saw the first red leaves on a maple. My heart flutters at this so soon turning. The ache of last season’s winter still clings close.

What were you doing last year, or the year before? How have you changed?

lame excuse

Hi. I miss you. Yesterday was the worst day ever. I officially hate being pregnant. Here's to hoping today will be better. And that I'll put up a real post.

a bumpy start

I woke up with a crazy tension headache: the kind that makes everything seem like it the world should be painted in shades of pale blue. Made mint tea and sugar toast, and still I felt like crying. The sun is out this morning though the ground is soft from too much rain. I am trying, trying so hard to will myself up off the couch and head outdoors with Bean to plant things in the garden, or take a walk with the camera, or even go upstairs and paint something, but so far all I can do is sit here feeling like a collection of glass shards in a paper sack

Bean is playing ‘hospital’ by himself in a nook across the living room. “I have to see if your heart is bumping mama,” he says with a pretend stethoscope in hand.

I turn away so he cannot see my eyes, suddenly hot with tears.

For the love of food

I spent the day in the garden: discovering what weeks of rain and heat and neglect can do to leggy tomatoes and lettuces. Do you know that when a lettuce bolts, it shoots up four feet tall? I’ve learned so much from my garden this year—my first in this state, in this rocky soil and micro growing season. I planted too many lettuces at the same time, and now I’m stuck waiting for new seedlings to take hold and grow into big fat heads, while all the ones I previously planted were ready at exactly the same time and have now all grown bitter and bolted. I also planted far too many radishes and mustard greens, which grow wildly and rapidly bolted within a month. I left them in for a while, an invitation to the honey bees. What I’ve loved and will repeat are the beautiful artichokes, the watermelons and pumpkins, the bush beans, tomatoes, and sweet peas. I used sticks from the woods to prop the peas up, and today harvested a colander full, which I shucked and had a lovely bowl full of jewel-green peas. Now the only question is how should I cook them?

The sad fact of the matter is that in addition to being a complete amateur gardener, I am even more of an amateur cook. I lack any and all ability to improvise in the kitchen, throwing a few ingredients together in a way that makes the flavors jostle and dance. And it’s something I’m not proud about at all. In fact, it makes me feel somehow very, oh, I don’t know, like a bad mother, to be honest.

DH cooks almost all of our food—he wooed me with oysters in white wine, polenta with chevre and sundried tomatoes, fried ravioli with sage, ridiculously tender steaks and new potatoes. But when push comes to shove his default foods tend to fall into two categories: meat and pasta, and after a while I feel like I should somehow be summoning the rich culinary tradition of my mother. She makes exquisite food using multiple grains and veggies and everything she makes is always exploding with flavor.

Her good food nourished me growing up, and gave me something I treasure: a truly healthy attitude towards food. I don’t eat for comfort; I can leave a half a cookie on my plate if I feel full; and I crave salad and fresh fruit over anything processed. But damn, for all that, I can’t cook anything. And it’s something that I want to change. I want to give Bean, and this new little Sprout the same kind of soul nourishment my mother’s food gave me.

Okay, so I can make practically anything if I follow a recipe, but I get daunted easily and NEVER know what to buy at the grocery store. Our refrigerator and pantry are always full and yet we never seem to have any ingredients to make anything. It’s a dire and sad state of affairs. How do I change this?

I’ve been thinking about food because my attitude towards it has been severely altered by this pregnancy: now everything is mostly unappealing. I have no cravings, and in fact have an aversion to almost every single food product you can think of. Truly, it feels like being cursed. I have perhaps never fully considered just how much I enjoy food. It’s both the ritual of eating together and the nourishment that I love about it, and I miss both with a vengeance. Bread products are the only non offenders.

So I have questions: how shall I cook my sweet peas? And also, how can I possibly go about learning to cook? Not crazy fancy stuff. Just simple wholesome meals using the foods I love: fresh local veggies and fruits, grains, nuts, etc.

If you love to cook, I want to know how you make meals? How do you plan? How do you purchase food for the week? How do you decide what to make for dinner—and make it without it taking two hours and using every pot in the kitchen?

roots

Yesterday the moon looked like a copper penny in the sky, red and low against the dark mountains, clouds clinging to its craters. Today it rained. All day; the kind of steady rain that makes you think Biblically, the Ark suddenly making sense.

It was the kind of rain that made me loose all resolve to do anything worthwhile. The sky smudged gray, the ground already full to saturation, streambeds overflowing everywhere, the brown water spilling out into fields where last week new hay was cut. It was a day of naps and feeling sorry for myself.

I’ve been noticing how my moods fluctuate lately. One day, I’m feeling like this kid is going to be the best thing ever, and the next, while I’m staring at the contours of the toilet bowl, I’m wondering how overpopulation is possibly a problem. People do this? Multiple times?

When the nausea slips away from the foreground though, lingering only like a dull haze between here and the mountains, I feel content with the way things have turned out. A year ago might have been different, but now, DH and I are closer than we’ve ever been. In the three years since Bean, since moving to the end of this long dirt road, we’ve grown up a great deal. Having Bean felt like a gamble, and even after, there were long dark months of winter where things were uncertain and fragile between us. Maybe it’s just the summer sun that’s made the difference, but I feel like we’ve worked hard to reach this new place of camaraderie and passion. For us, growing up and growing a family have happened like dominoes: the one and then the other a tipping point.

But then there are days where all I know is that winter will be back, and with it the new baby and sleep deprivation. These are the days when every single food tastes offensive, and if DH tousles my hair I get hot flashes and feel annoyed.

The thing is, I’m trying to learn how to ride the waves. It’s something I think I’ve always struggled against. I’ve always been a planner, a long-term-goal-keeper, a girl with a map and an escape route tucked into the back pocket of her paint stained jeans. But lately I’ve started to feel like these things might not serve me any more. Fleeing no longer seems like an option, sensible or not, simply because the desire is no longer there. Is this what becoming rooted to a place means?

I’ve planted roses this year. For the longest time I’ve always thought that planting roses was a signal of something, because roses with their exquisite blooms and sharp thorns are things you can’t take with you. They don’t like to be transplanted, and here, at the front of the house, along the narrow walk by the door they’re thriving: bursts of canary and crimson that make me smile every single time I walk by.

So I’ve planted roses, and maybe I’m starting to put down roots. Together, we’ve worked to mediate the ache and wanderlust; finding find a balance we can both live with of a life that fills us up with adventure while still holding us snug in the palm of this moment here, on this land, where the wild grasses and black-eyed-Susan’s flatten in the wind. It’s taken years to reach this point, longer than the time we’ve spent living here for sure.

When we moved here I was still grieving the death of my father. I felt him everywhere: in the boards and the hammer; in my son’s middle name. Now, time has softened the sharpness of that loss, and home has started to mean something different than what it was growing up among grape-stake fences and dry summer grass on my parent’s land.

So I’m feeling like I’m ready for this. Like we are. Except for the damn nausea and stomach pain that lingers perpetual and invasive. Sometimes that makes me just want to curl up in a ball and cry.