Monday, Monday

Hi Monday. What are you up to today?

There was 91% humidity when I woke up this morning. Clouds heavy and thick, threatening thunderstorms, then sun. A trip to the river is in the forecast today, for sure.

This weekend was all about out-of-town friends, hanging out around the bonfire in the back yard, roasting marshmallows and sipping summer beer. We spent the evening talking about heady, esoteric things like love and the evolution of technology.

I love conversations like these that loop and spiral and press at the edges of what we know. We talked a lot about the state of the world, about the future, and about power. I am very interested in the idea of power right now. It's a theme that keeps coming up in my new novel, unbidden and determined to be there on the page.

What do you think it means to have power (and how is this different than to have money)?

* * * Also, some lovelies I perusing this week that I wanted to share:

This gorgeous daily record by the author of Lobster & Swan. Isn't it a great idea? I think I may steal it, and try it out in my moleskine this week. I always see images I love, and never end up doing anything with them. Nothing some paste & a date stamp can't fix, apparently. In a similar vein, this 'savings account' of daily inspiration is also absolutely lovely and full of goodness.

This is what I know today

To be a child means living wonder, without knowing wonder is a concept, an abstraction.

I was a star before I fell down into your tummy, Mommy, Bean tells me. We’re on his bed, the blue Hawaiian print sheets in a rumple, the lights dim, twilight outside.

Everyone dies, he says but we don’t stay dead. We go up to heaven and then we come back down again as a new baby.

I want to tell you things...

I want to tell you things. I want to capture moments and pin them down, and preserve them like the fragile wings of the butterflies we sometimes find dead along the roadside at the end of summer.

I want to tell you about the fragrance of peaches. The way they melt in my mouth, the fragrance filling every crevice of memory and consciousness with the utter sweetness of late summer. They are a thing to behold, peaches, now, when you can cut them in half, twisting so that the fruit separates easily from the pit and the skin slides off like a party dress.

I want to tell you about the way the house smelled like blueberry boy bait this afternoon. Cakey and heavenly, made with freshly ground flour and local berries.

I want to tell you about the fat green watermelon resting on my counter, its round rind a map of green and pale stripes. It will split open easily, revealing the red fruit and dark seeds. Watermelon is summer. Summer is red sticky juice running down little boy’s chins, and spitting seeds, and sitting on the front step with big slices watching the storm clouds come. In the garden our own sugar babies and moon and stars are ripening, their leaves like ruffled skirts creeping over ground to fraternize the long girlish legs of the corn.

I want to tell you how everything is always one thing and then another. How a morning can be good or bad, and so the day will go, always sort of unexpected. Always abrupt and unfolding. Every day is a small surprise. I am struck by this again and again: that being alive sometimes feels so fickle and permeable, each day a handful of pebbled moments bumping up against each other in god’s pockets. The mountains are blue. The day ends earlier. The clouds come. They bring rain. I wake up with a headache wanting to cry; but then there is the fragrance of roses by the stoop, summer peaches, watermelon, boy bait on plates with forks and crumbs.

I want you to understand this, because I want to understand it too: that today can be anything. That it can be lost and reclaimed a hundred times.

* * * I also want to tell you thank you for your comments on my last post. I loved reading every single one. Loved discovering some new blogs and old favorites and all the amazing goals for August that you have. I want to come here daily, post things, share snippets, but the hours are never long enough. Never. I’m falling behind on my word count, though I’m typing frantically to keep up (just above 12k today.)

And oh, the headache that is this morning. Sigh.

What are you up to today?

A new look.

Hi. It's about time for a new look around here.

In the process, I seem to have lost a post, but no big deal. It's Monday and its sunny which are two things I generally really love, except last night Sprout woke up at 4am and pretty much didn't go back to sleep the rest of the night/morning. And how I count on those two hours. Oh man. It will certainly be a two latte day.

Now that things are fresh and clean around here, I want to share some links I've found lately that I've been enjoying.

Firstly, Tait Simpsons's photographs. They are full of line and texture and mood. Also Sophik's dreamy summer photos. Especially this one. I've always had a soft spot for old trucks. These portraits by Mikael Kennedy also grabbed me. They are haunting and memorable and somehow almost secretive, like you're there in the room, but no one knows.

Also, a little music. I'm listening to this over and over again. It's in a story I'm working on, and the more I listen the more I love it. Gould was a fascinating, remarkable, devastating musician. Speaking of music, have you heard this? If not, you are in for a treat. It's the kind of mixed up soundtrack that makes sense to me. That music is like what stories do in my head: one talking to another until they become part of another story together.

So. Hi. What are your plans for August? I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours. I want this month to be outstanding. It's the last month of summer. The month when all the insects start singing in the grass and the blackberries get ripe. Its the month for doing big things.

So I'll admit. I have an embarrassingly enormous writing goal for August. I had a story blindside me the other day, and it won't let go. It's as far away from anything I'm comfortable writing as I've ever been, and yet it's good and the exciting and the characters just keep whispering in my ears. It's all rather discombobulating, as I was right in the middle of my book project, and I have more than one short story on the stove too right now. But it wont leave and is demanding to be written, so I am.

I decided to do my own little August version of NaNoWriMo. Ha. Did I just say little? Not so much really. I am aiming to have about 80,000 words by the end of the month. I know, right? Crazy. I can't help it though. The story must. be. written. And I figure if I write about it here it will be just one more reason to do it.

Also, I am really interested to see how I respond to such concrete writing goals and completely new material. The stuff I've been working on for other book is so different. I have so much material already there that I am constantly tripping myself up with ambivalence and indecision. That story is close to my heart and I love it, but it is a pain in the ass. Kind of like another child.

The new story, though, this hit-me-upside-the-head story is more like someone I have a crush on. I am obsessed. I want to do nothing but sit down and listen to the characters as they chatter amongst themselves. My fingers ache at night from typing, and there is no way, no way at all I can type fast enough to get everything down it seems. And I like it like that. And I am interested to see what happens if I go for it, all out, no hold barred, no excuses.

See, the thing is, I respond well to goals and deadlines whether I want to admit it or not. And I also respond well to doing things in little bite sized manageable pieces. Like the 30 Day Shred, or running 3 miles, committing to 2500 words a night seems like a concrete and small enough goal that it will actually get me somewhere. Like in the neighborhood of an entire novel by the end of this month.

Right, so, off the deep end I go. Tra la la.

What are you up to this month? What thing do you really want to do in that quiet secret compartment in your heart? I dare you. I dare you to do it every day. For the whole month. (PS-Because I'm into doing things big this month, I am declaring it an unofficial delurking day. Please say hi. Your comments are one of my favorite things in the world.)

Live Blogging Thursday

Hi Thursday. I've been off in my own world lately, doing things. One of the things I have been doing is trying to sort out some issues with my blog and the funky charset issues that occurred with an upgrade to a newer version of Wordpress. As a result I've been going through my archives, and holy moly I've been blogging a while. This is the 901 post on this blog. Crazy, right? Anyway, what I realized is that I love reading my older posts that just capture whatever we were doing that day, right in the moment. Maybe they are banal moments, but they are ours and I like the record. I like seeing where we were, and where we are now, and lately I haven't been doing nearly enough of that here.

So. Today. LIVE BLOGGING. I'm going to update this post a bunch throughout the day as Bean and Sprout and I gallivant and get ourselves into situations. I would LOVE for you to join in and live blog your day too. Leave a comment with a link to your post if you do.

9:32 A.M.: This is what our morning looks like often. The boys hanging out together doing things. Sprout has just started rolling over back to tummy (he's been doing tummy to back for a while) and with this whole new range of mobility he is tearing things up! Bean likes the company.

Breakfast. This is a classic for me: toss two pieces of bread with ample butter into a pan. Crack two eggs on top, any old place. Cook the whole mess. Eat. The toast is dreamy. Buttery and crisp. The eggs are hard, which I like. Also a latte.

Now we are off to carve sticks and build fairy houses in the back yard while Sprout naps.

1:20 P.M. Harder than I thought to keep up with our active family & actually post pictures!

From the morning fairy house making: Bean was very serious about using the pocket knife. He sharpened the ends of sticks to poke into the moss to build the structure. We gathered small stones and shells and field flowers. When you stop to look, even the most humble clover astounds.

When we came indoors we had slice after slice of cantaloupe and then went for an impromptu raspberry picking adventure with DH. Bean raced up and down the rows, eating more berries certainly than he picked. Sprout sampled some too, and didn't seem to have any complaints. I am picturing some type of raspberry cobbler for dessert tonight.

Now Bean is napping and Sprout and I are hanging out in the back yard. The end of summer crickets have begun their ruckus, even though it has only felt like summer for the past week. We've had so much rain, these days of warm and gold have been balm to our damp spirits.

Next up: exercise, a swim at the pond, and making dessert.

How has your Thursday been treating you?

3:25 P.M. We just had the best swim. I am slowly but surely teaching Bean to swim in the neighbor's pond. I didn't bring the camera--one too many things to haul! But he was great and giggly and super cute. He put his head under and kicked gorgeously and tried many times to push off from the side and paddle to me. He'll be swimming by the end of the summer, I think.

Where is everyone today?

10:39 P.M. It was a perfect day. Not every day turns out like this, but I am happy that this was the day I picked to keep my camera close at hand and record moments.

After our swim at the pond DH and I worked out, Sprout watched and Bean painted.

Then Bean and Sprout did some chilling out with books.

Then dinner. Pasta with fresh basil, oregano, chives, tomatoes, olives, and sausage.

And the best raspberry cobbler ever. EVER. (so easy to make: 1 c. flour + 1c. whipped cream folded together with 4 tsp. sugar for the crust--apply in lumps over 2 pints raspberries w/ 1/4-1/2c. sugar and 4tbs butter cut into small pieces. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.) DIVINE.

I loved reading the comments today. There is something so fascinating to me about the minutia of life. I am really looking forward to some of you doing some live blogging too. A peak into your world as it unfolds.

Monday's inspiration + a question

Hi Monday. It's briefly sunny and everything seems to be yelling about it: finches and woodpeckers and chickens. In the honeysuckle at the front of the house, hummingbirds.

Today: a run, reading a story or two, taking Sprout for his 5 month check up*, transplanting a peony bush, and quite possibly some baking. Also writing. Always, always that.

Here are a few links I found this weekend that I am crushing on:

These photos of the Holland Flower Auction that almost make me want to weep. I'd give a lot for an armful of roses right now, or tulips.

This Joy + Ride. A gorgeous little journal with interviews featuring artists and writers and all kinds of delight.

And this delightfully terse blog with beautiful photos.

(* An update to come on my beautiful, sweet Sprout.)

***

Now an question for you (that will help me enormously on a story I'm writing): What were you like as a teenager? If you share, I will. And maybe I'll even post a pic or two.

Thunder cupcakes

Make these. They are the perfect accompaniment for thunderstorms, especially when made and eaten with little boys.

* 1 8-ounce package cream cheese * 1 large egg * 2 tablespoons sugar * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract * 1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

* 1 cup all purpose flour * 3 tablespoons sifted unsweetened cocoa powder * 3/4 teaspoon baking powder * 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt * 1/8 teaspoon baking soda * 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar * 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature * 2 large eggs * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract * 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped, melted, warm * 1/2 cup whole milk

Beat cream cheese in medium bowl. Add egg, sugar, salt, and vanilla and beat until almost smooth. Fold in chocolate chips (I was generous with these!)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Mix wet ingredients together then add dry. Fill cups 1/3 full. Then plunk a heaping spoonful of the cream cheese + chocolate chip mixture into the middle of each cup.

Bake cupcakes until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pan, then in the fridge~ I think these cupcakes actually taste better cold than warm...though some might beg to differ.

* Recipe originally from here.

Also, I am just loving these beautiful photographs.

Inspired by:

Hi. Wednesday. There was sun today for the first time, literally, in weeks. Tell me this, Internets, is it sunny where you are? And if so, is it often? I'm starting to get itchy feet. Hankering to be somewhere else maybe. Some place with more sun, more... I don't know. If I were foot loose and fancy free I'd be tempted to do this. I've always wanted to write a story about big rig drivers. Cool, right?

Really though: do you love where you live? Tell me about it!

Also today: lots of revising and forward progress. Writing is a crazy making profession for sure. So much terror and doubt is there, every day, waiting in the margins, in the click of the space bar. During breaks today I was inspired by her beautiful aesthetic. And also this breathtaking art.

This super cool journal also caught my eye today. I love when image and story and news and ideas collide. It's how it's like inside my head.

Speaking of things that get inside my head--I loved reading this story in particular because it reminded me somehow very much of The Year of Silence by Kevin Brockmeier in the Best American, which was originally published here. I wish I could find a link for you to read it online--because then you'd see what I mean about these two pieces connecting. This picture in particular, of Sao Paolo stripped of visual pollution is just what I pictured when I imagined a city stripped of sound. It's serene and calming and yet...I like a mess, which is why I liked how Brockmeier's little piece ends immensely.

And finally, because I adore lists and am a total sucker for good food, Travelers Lunchbox delighted me so much today. Particularly this list of all foodie lists. My short list of to die for food off the top of my head: cherry pie, pasta from Mezzaluna, lime gelato in the Piazza della Signoria, affogato, oysters with white wine and garlic butter.

Runners up: root beer floats, hot chocolate from Quebec served in a bowl, majool dates, fresh raspberries, steak frites, unagi sushi, raspberry sorbet, licorice, dark dark chocolate, caramel apples, dry packed scallops, Oh lord, I have started something I cannot stop. What are your top five and your runners up?

A weekend roundup

First off, I very much loved reading about your media habits the past couple of days. I have continued keep a record of what I've been consuming media wise, and I think that it's made me much more conscious and thoughtful about my choices... I've decided to keep the record going over at twitter. It seems like the perfect, if not slightly ironic venue for such things. But before I do, I want to share with you some of my favorite links from the past couple of days:

Firstly, Elizabeth Strout's essay "English Lesson" in the Washington Post this week is fantastic. She is such an amazing writer to me. Her characters are so real, nuanced, subtle. She deserves every ounce of praise for Olive Kitteridge, which was my favorite book I read last year.

Also, I am giddy with the discovery of the Washington Post's Summer Reading Issues from years past. I am sure everyone else on the face of the earth has already devoured these stories, but until now they have somehow escaped me. Delight. I cannot wait to read all of them (I have not yet.)

Also, speaking of the Washington Post, if you don't read Gene Weingarten you should. This piece made me sob when I first read it. This one made me nearly die laughing. Also, because things seem to work this way in my life, his piece this week explores the various glories and follies of tweeting. Ah-hem.

Now, without further ado, some family updates (a.k.a, my camera is fixed people. Prepare yourselves for some seriously photo-heavy posts to come!)

First off, have you met Bob, our rooster? Bob, Internets. Internets, Bob. He is named after this book.

Here is the new batch of girls who have finally figured out how to do the free-range thing, thus saving us more fruitless attempts to catch them whilst thrashing our legs on sharp pine boughs.

And here is newest member of the poultry bunch: the chick that the goose hatched. It's name name is Twitter. Bean named it. I swear he knows nothing of my current media obsessions.

And because I cannot stop staring at my beautiful boys:

Also yesterday, because it was raining and we were bummed because we were supposed to go to this amazing parade to celebrate the umpteen hundred years of our city's existence and instead had to stay home to avoid being drenched and bedraggled, we had a dumpling party instead. The four of us. Fancy frozen drinks for everyone and homemade dumplings using this recipe.

While we were frying up the dumplings we had pandora on, set to a Madonna quick mix (which turned out to be the best movin, groovin, bootie shaking tunes ever!) The storm was right overhead with lots of serious thunderclaps. For dessert we made chocolate pudding with fresh strawberries and watched the Tour together on the couch.

What have you been reading, doing, and eating this weekend?

5 months old

Sprout is 5 months old today.

He is perfect.

Media Record Day 2

Started off on media bistro this morning, and found my way here. Again apropos. I like how even here, in the seeming chaos and of the Internet, like attracts like, and patterns emerge.

Later my mother sent me a link to this fascinating review of Winifred Gallagher's Rapt; a book I now very much want to read.

From there the day fragmented into lots of email, a little twitter, and thankfully a lot of writing. (Saw this post, via Twitter, and started wondering is conflict essential to all good fiction?

What do you think? I am very interested in hearing your ideas on this...

Also watched So You Think You Can Dance, which I adore, because as I've said here before: if I could have a talent bestowed upon me, it would be the ability to dance.

It was a roller coaster day though. Storm clouds, indecisive rain, sallow sun, moods getting tossed all around our house. One of those days where everything seemed annoying: Bean's loud sing song voice, the way he is inclined to DASH everywhere lately, Sprout's new inclination to spit up gallons of sour milk without any warning whatsoever, the never ending dampness that has become this summer, and one too many issues with the poultry (the chicks escaped again--and the same hoopla of chasing them around a very sharp pine tree in the rain, in the mud, that occurred two days ago, took place again today.)

It should also be noted, as somewhat of a highlight, that our goose hatched a baby chick today. Chick, as in chicken. Long story. I'm not sure if it will survive. Something in me isn't quite sure she'll know how to mama a baby that small and fluffy (I'll post pictures tomorrow!) but when I checked on her this evening the little chick was tucked in on her back, at the nape of her neck, peeping away. She's still sitting on two other eggs. Here's to seriously hoping she'll figure it out. I've kind of had enough poultry drama for a while.

Honestly it was one of those days where I kind of wished I lived somewhere utterly urban: full of angles and elbows, people wearing black, umbrellas, pointy shoes, bustling bodegas, sharp lines, bright lights. I'd happily settle willingly for anywhere sunny though. Then I could throw a garden party just like this (found via a friend on facebook.)

What were your media moments today?

Media Record Day 1

Here is a record, more or less of the media I interacted with today: The continuation of a hysterical email exchange with my dear girlfriends about married names and given names and choosing names. One of my friends is marrying a man who happens to have the same name as her, minus a syllable. You can see how this might get tricky.

Another email exchange with some amazing friends about their reading habits, re: fiction or memoir? (Weigh in please!)

Visiting and revisiting twitter and still not quite getting how such a multi-directional, utterly dislocated conversation with a thousand different people going all at the same time makes any sense at all. But kind of liking reading about the goings on in the literary agent world (last weeks #queryfail made me laugh, though apparently it made others cry.)

Facebook, twice. A friend posted this: “prioritizing inappropriately” and it couldn’t be more apropos.

SheWrites, once. Since I signed up on Monday, the place has a zillion new members. I’m still not sure how to use the opportunity here. I’m tempted to spend all day networking. But then there’s that pesky thing called ACTUALLY WRITING which I should be doing more of. I have 90 pages of raw material. I need to double that. Then I can talk. Or maybe then I should focus my energies on revising?

Read this rather morbid list, while researching the circumstances of Plath's death for my book. Oy. I haven't chosen a profession with a guaranteed pleasant outcome, have I?

Then I read "Suspension" by Rebecca Makkai, and loved it because of it’s form. I googled Makkai after reading her story “The Worst You Ever Feel” in the 2008 Best American, and this story is where I landed.

On paper, in actual three dimensions I read Lorrie Moore’s piece "Childcare" in this weeks New Yorker. A few great lines, like this one: “ I accidentally nodded. I had no idea, conversationally, where we were. I searched, as I too often found myself having to do, to find a language, or even an octave in which to speak” made me smile because I could relate. But the piece was generally meh. Not something that will likely stick with me, though maybe now it will because I am writing about it. (Go read it! Tell me what you think. I loved doing that last time--hearing your ideas about a story. Having a little impromptu book club.)

And I read the intro in Molly’s book a Homemade Life. Every time I hold the book in my hands I am smitten with simultaneous inspiration and envy. It’s not a good combination and thus far has prevented me from reading farther. However it has inspired me to try my hand at homemade pasta. Also chocolate cupcakes.

Finally, I read yesterday's headlines in the Wall Street Journal, while walking back up the driveway with a sleeping Sprout, but I cannot recall any of them. Only that there was an entire full page add about Presidential Armored Safe's that you can obtain for FREE if you purchase multiple sets of 'government coins that never loose their value.'

I am certain I consumed other bits of information, and yet my memory of them is even more frail and blurred. What is the point of all this consumption if I cannot even remember it?

Maybe I should also note that I also did some revising, finished a chapter, started two art projects while bouncing Sprout in the ergo, took a walk (to get him to sleep), did the shred, and baked cookies. Also there was dinner and bedtime stories and so forth. Gasp. Does anyone ever feel like they have enough time?

*** Your turn: what media did you interact with today?

Media Habits

Wednesday. When I type that word I think of fifth grade, of the yellow lined paper I used to practice spelling it on in loopy cursive, Wed-nes-day. I still say it that way in my head when I write it out.

Funny how certain things stick and others evaporate in a second. Just as I was writing this I thought of the premise for a perfect short story. By the time I’d pulled up a new sticky note on my desktop, it had slipped my mind and all I could remember was the fact that I need to email several friends and am very remiss in doing so. Maddening.

Memory. It’s such a loopy, lumpy thing, like an old floral couch with little spots burned in the fabric from where the sun struck it, shining through a vase on the windowsill just so.

I remember my childhood vividly and sporadically. From fifth grade I remember learning the entire Greek alphabet, all of the prepositions in alphabetical order, how to spell Wednesday, and how I kicked Zachary O’Day in the crotch with those slouchy pointy toed boots that were all the rage along with acid washed jeans in 1986.

I do not however, remember yesterday, unless I put some serious mental effort towards the task.

No. That isn’t true. I do remember the way last night we decided to go with a red metal bucket to pick raspberries down by the pond and a quarter of the way there ran into two stray dogs. One was a yellow lab with one of those pronged collars that look vaguely threatening, and the other was a black wisp of a dog with floppy ears and lanky legs and pale ghost blue eyes, part husky for sure. They weren’t from around here. Not any of the neighbor's dogs, and when we went towards them they ran, away from us, up our hill, towards our house and our free range chickens.

Incidentally, just yesterday DH decided that our two month old chicks were old enough to go free range, without the enclosure we normally put them into. And by decided, I mean he took the path of least resistance, as they had escaped him when he was trying to transfer them from the large wooden box where they spend the night in the coop, to the enclosure on the lawn. They escaped and he decided to hell with them. So they were out under the pine all day and just fine except that now of course two feral and rather hungry looking dogs were heading right towards them.

We ran back up our hill, pushing the stroller with Sprout who indignantly began to wail and Bean, who dropped his bike and skittered up after us, his yellow helmet bobbing, his eyes on the sky where thunder had begun to rumble. "I saw lightening," he said, his voice all quavery. "It might get us."

Seriously, when it rains it pours around here.

And so there we were, trying to deter the dogs by yelling and throwing rocks in their general direction, and then trying to catch and re-coop the not so big and definitely not so smart chicks who would make a mad dash for the coop door and then at the very last minute would scatter frantically in all directions.

I remember this. Yes I do. But what I don’t remember—unless I stop now and really think of it—is what I read yesterday, what I learned, what media I consumed. And I’ve been thinking about that since my last post: how I am maybe suffering from information/networking overload and what to do about it.

And I came up with this: For the rest of the week I am going to try to keep notes here about my media habits and see where this gets me. Likely, I'll be back with my first record this afternoon. You in?

Sweet things

Things that I loved about today: figs & raw honey, a four mile run (!) and a swim in our neighbor's pond. Oh how I love to swim...and somehow I had forgotten this. I don't know why it's taken me three years to go and jump in, the surface rippling green, bluebirds swooping about. How I love the soft feel of the pond bottom underfoot, the way the water is soft on your skin, the way the bubbles rise up when you kick. Bean and I have gone every day this week. We lie like otters on the little wooden dock, and then we swim.

He doesn't know how to swim yet, but he's becoming more daring: leaping from the bank into the water into my arms. His grins, his chattering teeth, his little muscled torso nearly break my heart. He is so lovely, so beautiful, my son. My firstborn boy, so big now: learning to swim.

On his bike he is a terror. He's been riding without training wheels for months and now he purposely seeks out the washed out, steepest places on the driveway, the bumpiest pot-holes to ride over full tilt. He's a mountain biker in the making: the way he skids to a stop, leaps off his bike, swings back on it, all the while grinning, mud splattering up the back of his shirt, his yellow thunderbolt helmet the perfect statement.

Boys. Even though I imagined boys I couldn't have pictured this. The delight and silliness of little boys. The way they play together makes me nearly swoon with pleasure. Bean seeks out Sprout, he wants to be near him, next to him. He 'reads' him books, acts out entire narratives with matchbox cars, sings endless little songs, lies noes to nose with him. And all the while Sprout grins like he's having lunch with his idol. It's the best, the way my boys are together. I want more than anything for them to stay this way. For them to always be buddies and friends, for Bean to always have Sprout's back. For Sprout to always burst into wide smiles when his brother enters the room. It makes me so happy.

Bean asked if he and Sprout could share a room recently. We have 3 bedrooms, so they wouldn't have to necessarily, and it hadn't really occurred to me to have them share. But now I'm wondering, why not? What are the pros and cons? I always had to share a room with one or the other of my sisters, and while I am sure they hated it (sorry I stole all your clothes, sis!) I adored it. Not always, but most of the time. I loved going to bed and having a sister to whisper with, and waking up in the middle of the night and hearing her breathe. But now as a parent I'm not actually sure how to orchestrate room sharing--with boys who are four years apart. How would bedtimes work?

So. Questions: what were the highlights of your day today? And: yea or nay on the shared-bedroom business?

What would you ask for?

"She'd been so sure a crap liquor store would not stock French cigarettes just because you asked. The shock every time she went in, and there they were. She was used to taking the world as it was, she'd never have guessed you could get what you wanted by asking for it."

~from Paint It Black by Janet Fitch I was struck by these few sentences and the idea has stayed in my head since I finished this book (which I loved, by the way) And I've wondered: What do I want to ask for? What should I be asking for? It feels powerful and vulnerable at the very same time to think of this. To imagine asking, putting myself out there, saying this is what I need.

Today I would ask for: An agent to represent my book. Funding to be able to write and live. Financial abundance would be swell,but just enough would be okay too--to live and write, rinse and repeat. A sponsor, or sponsors. To not feel like I'm always the trailblazer. Some days I want so badly for someone else to say: here, let me show you how to do this so you won't mess it all up.

(And also maybe for some sun. The humidity is getting on my nerves.)

What would you ask for? Really. If you could ask for anything--or many things, what would they be?

10 open tabs

Day after day the rain comes in the evening, the windowsills wet. I eat an extra cookie, the chocolate melting bitter and sweet and sticky on my tongue, crumbs on the couch for sure, and put Sprout to sleep in his bouncy seat in the laundry room.

Yes. There with the fans, and the rhythmic satisfaction of clothes being turned and turned again in sudsy water (a task my great grandmother maybe did by hand with a washboard in a basin, and before her women at the creek bed, knees pressed into the silty mud, pounding with stones) there is a snugness that lulls him. The fan drones and the wash whirls back and forth, and beautifully, without a fight, he's asleep.

So. I've been moody with this rain, the humidity making my hair curl and my skin stick. I have 10 tabs open in my internet browser and I’m on the verge of tears, right on the cusp of everything as usual. It's so terrifying to contemplate doing more than whatever it is I’m doing right now. As in: sending more work out, figuring more things out, putting my heart out there in thin lines of Times New Roman double spaced and waiting for whatever.

It's terrifying to sit here on our stained couch with sore boobs (Sprout nursed less than usual today, but he was just as chummy and darling as ever,) contemplating what else could be a reality soon, or never, or maybe. What if I make it?

Sometimes that question is almost as confounding and daunting as What if I don't?

Here are the things I suck at: organizing, networking, time lines, deadlines, and synthesis. Here are the things I am good at: sentences, earnestness, heart, metaphors, and dreaming.

Between those to columns are the three words that Nike made so very famous: just do it. Sometimes that feels impossibly hard.

Sometimes I don't even know what that looks like, doing it, going for it: where to begin?

Breath. I come back to that. And then I go back to my browser with it's ten open tabs and try to make sense of my life.

You? What are you good at? What are you utterly miserable less good at?

And: Which is more terrifying: attempting success and failing, or failing to attempt success? Ha!

And I sit feeling everything

Today the sound of fans and windmy heart breaking and gathering in the turning air; a racehorse with an ankle turned, tendons like rope, continues even then towards the line, nostrils flared, hay soon and cool, cool water.

The sky is spread with shreds of clouds, the leaves are moving, fluttering, the air winnowing around the tiny furze on the swallowtail’s wing and I sit feeling everything: damp hair falling on my shoulders stems on the table of eaten strawberries small circles of berry stain, pollen scattered from the bouquet of daisies with their bending stems in the glass jar and the way I am uncertain now.

Other things know nothing of this the poplars and the meadow grasses bend and bend and bend again in the wind.

A handful of small good things:

Wednesday. Watching the rain from the porch with Sprout. Newly mowed grass, in heaps. Tired. So tired, after a night awake with a restless babe. Fresh jam. Scattered thoughts. Trying to make sense with words with some people, including with my mother, and while my heart is there, and hers is, it doesn't always come out right. You know? The words crisscross like a subway map, and you find you can't always get off where you intend to. A headache. Raw almonds on honey toast. The first zinnias blooming in the garden. And already the day is over and it's time for bed. But before sleep, some things to share:

First: some small art. Little tiny pieces that I am putting in a little gallery for sale. I know. It’s been years, literally, since I sold art here, with the time away from teaching my creative well has been filling and I’m excited to start sharing little pieces with you. Please go look. It's just a start. An inkling. We'll see where it goes.

The pieces I’ll be putting up first are in a songbird series. I have this gorgeous old vintage book about songbirds and I’m giving its pages new life with little paintings of the birds that have been making me so happy this summer.

Also, I’ve been loving…this gorgeous little journal of random things.

These photos.

This little story.

And these fascinating little films.

What's inspiring you?

What is today in your life?

It's the orioles that save me. The way they have come this year, more than any other year, to these lush woods, swooping across the stormy June skies, saffron and vermilion, like promises.

It's the hawks circling above, reminding me that I am human and very small; that I am a creature of gravity and bones, soft bellied, begging with gratitude at the dawn of each new day. Let there be a tomorrow, and a tomorrow after that.

It is the swallowtails that float up like yellow gifts on the fragrant air. I think of my father when I see them. I wish sometimes that he were here to see my life now, to witness my boys and my words; to see that my hands still remember the art of work. He was the first to teach me this: that tools and soil and tasks can be solace, can be grace.

In the garden, weeding between the first delicate chartreuse shoots of corn, it is the red efts that save me. They come from the dark, dark earth, burrowing towards the sun, carrying small secrets about the way time really goes. Slowly. Slower still.

Here I am in this life. I wake up to the sound of boys, to the rooster crowing, to the sky full of torn clouds and sun, to the poplars bending in the wind. This is new, this gratitude, this ability to say I am here and look! Look at this wondrous life! It used to terrify me, the idea of settling someplace with someone and making a go of it, but now I cannot think of anything more real, more full than this work.

For a long, long time, for all of my twenties (which felt long to me then) I was too impatient to feel this, to know the secret wealth contained in slow moments. Like the spiraling interior of a nautilus, the tasks of now continue to teach me how to be.

There are days when I still hate them. Days when it seems impossible to be okay with doing one more dish, with vacuuming again, with folding one more little shirt, but I am beginning to understand that it is the utter banality of the tasks that also makes them profound.

Many people don't use their hands any more, not the way they did when most of the day was occupied with the tasks of living. I've been thinking of this as DH and I have moved huge flat rocks from the old shambled stone walls on our land to make new front steps. We used the scoop bucket of a tractor, but when they were made into crude walls dividing fields long ago, it was with more brute strength: horses and sweat. A whole day's work to drag and place a few large stones.

We have machines now, and to them we are grateful: I cannot imagine the enormous labor of washing clothes by hand; email gets there so much faster than a letter sent with paper and a stamp in the post. Because of machines we have more time in the day, free from tasks with our hands we're able to do other things.

Still. I can feel how my body is meant to move, and how my hands are meant as tools, nimble on the keyboard remembering the sequence of keystrokes to make every word appear on the screen in quick succession. Awareness in these tasks becomes a way of saying grace.

It is the tasks that save me, even as my impatient mind lurches forwards, consumed with worry and with goals. I can do nothing really, except whatever it is I am doing right now. Here: afternoon, stormy skies, my knees pulled up to my chest the way I often sit when I write, the soles of my bare feet on the seat of the chair. Here, with a jar of irises and buttercups and a dirty milk glass left from lunch. Here with the sweet fruity scent of freshly made apricot-strawberry jam (I've been loving making quick jam lately, to eat with homemade bread. The perfect snack.)

Here at the table with the windows open, with my heart open, with the chickens pecking at the grass out the back door. So. This is my life today.

Stop. What are the moments happening right here for you? What is today in your life?

You & Me Now

It's night and things have maybe stoppedspinning for a while. You walk over to me, arms bare. Anything can happen now; everything is. But when come to me in your red t-shirt in the semi-dark; when you reach out, and fold your around my shoulders, I can feel the heat of you through the cotton, and I can hear your heart, and even if we lose everything we'll still be rich because of this the way I can press my face against your chest and feel like I am home.