Wishstuido
I have a post up here this week. Go check it out! It's about balancing motherhood and writing... something I try for again and again every single day... How do you find balance?
October Light
There is something about October light.The way the skies are stormy and squalls blow in with snow flurries in the mountains and sleet sticking to the grass. The way V's of geese and airplanes look like embers against the sky as the sun sets. The way every leaf becomes fire falling to the dying grass.
I took these pictures tonight, right at dinner, as the sun burst from under dark clouds. It was another long night again last night. Sprout might have an ear infection--that or he's just in a new sleep phase and has discovered his ears (he was tugging on them a bit today.) I watched every single green digital number in the hour flip by from 3 to 4 a.m. and this morning I was no less of a mess than yesterday and yet somehow the day wasn't all that bad.
It was a day where I tried to just let myself notice the small moments and breathe. Mostly I succeeded. And I cleaned the house. What did you do?
Not a morning poem at all
So. I think my short-term memory and my general ability to hold my shit together may be forever altered by the permanent lack of sleep that has become a fixture in my life, post babies. Exhibit A:Last week I left my cell phone on the roof of my car and drove away. I watched as it flew off and did a lovely flip in the air before landing on the road behind me. I pulled to the side, cursing, with Bean wide eyed in the back seat, and threw on my emergency blinkers (do they have some other word? I'm sure they do, but I cannot remember it. See--shit has been lost, people.) I then dashed back to retrieve it, hoping that at the worst it would be scratched but still functional. But of course, it landed in the effing middle of the road and an SUV ran it over just before I was able to dash out into two-way traffic to rescue it. SMASHED beyond repair.
Bean kept muttering, "This is terrible. This is soo terrible." All the way home.
Maybe this happens to everyone, and perhaps it is what some people gently refer to as GETTING OLD, but I'm only THIRTY ONE, people, and I and should have more of a capacity to remember things and generally keep my shit together than I have recently demonstrated.
Exhibit B: This morning I put my coffee cup on the roof of my car.
You'd think I would have learned, right?
Nooo. I drove off in oblivion only to slam on the breaks and come to a lurching stop at the bottom of our rather steep driveway as my coffee cup hurtled down my windshield. What the eff? Then I had to listen to Bean mutter about how his view was ruined by my frozen coffee splattered across his window.
It's a little bit more than my view that's been affected, BUDDY.
Exhibit C: While I remembered HIS jacket and hat and mittens for school this morning, I somehow managed to leave the house without so much as a vest, and it was COLD this morning. As in the first frost of the season happened last night. This situation was then made worse when I went to buy bagels and proceeded to spill the entire contents of the worst latte of my life (from here--don't ask me why I even ordered one!) onto my lap.
Cold? Check. Wet? Check. Shit completely lost? CHECK.
Please tell me this changes. Please.
Another image poem
anatomy of my heart today:
PS--Your comments on my post earlier meant the world to me today. Really. xoxox! C.
Drawing blanks
And I can't find the words to write about it. Dislocated. Nostalgic. Missing the way I used to be, as irrational as that seems. Feeling anxious about the future. What if I'll never be the things I dream of? Shit. Even I know that sounds ridiculous, and yet that voice is there in my head. A rejection letter in the mail. Not enough sleep. Whatever.
I am missing the connections I've made here, Internets. I know it's my fault that they've dwindled as I've been caught in this weird place of cat-got-your-tongue moodiness that is my present. Damn. I want to share my life with you more, again. I just don't know how to put words around it. What if this lasts? What if nothing turns out? This is the voice in my head today. Even with sun, even with coffee, even with sitting alone upstairs in a cafe.
Do you ever feel like this? Like there are no words?
What are you afraid of? What will you regret, if you never do it or become it?
Morning Poem # 4
The clouds are gossamer and the moment never lasts If we take daddy’s ladder, he says, looking out the window at the way the sky is rent, gold light spilling through the torn clouds, then we could put it on the top of that tall, tall hill and reach the sun, it would be hot, but I what I really want is to catch a cloud.
I would sleep with it at night, it would be soft against my cheek, and in the morning I would take it for a walk.
His cheeks flushed still from sleep, his hair still tousled, soft. On the couch pulling on corduroys for school, he stretches fingertips to toes touching both sides, so tall, and while he’s grinning big and wide, the cat arches her back by the door, the pot fills with water, the morning sky grows clear.
Morning Poem # 2
Things I don’t know how to do: I don’t know how to shuck an oyster, deep-sea dive, wear a space suit, read tax code, or order drinks at a bar. I don’t know how to play ping-pong or play with the small irrelevant moments of time that are handed to me to make into something useful; mine. I don’t know how to hang glide, or feel content dangling mid-air in uncertainty between projects or moments, waiting for things to take place or unravel. I don’t know how to fish, or reel myself in on a slender line or balance in thigh-high waders surrounded by the splashing my boys make in my life, always with the compulsion to throw rocks, and yell; always driven to try for whatever it is they cannot do.
Morning Poem # 1
Seismic waves traveledfrom the place where things were tilted and tossed; where a warren of market stalls collapsed under concrete; where yesterday mangoes and coffee, lemon grass, coconuts, bushel baskets of gnarled ginger and sugar were haggled for and exchanged, hands touching other hands each belonging to someone with loved ones, or now without, to here. The waves spread out in circles, and every pebble, every small speck of sand moved silently, in a minuscule way to these vibrations. Silently, and unseen, the waves traveled through the bedrock underneath my long dirt road and all the while I was just here caught up in doing things that matter only a little: spreading butter on the fat crumbs of toast brushing cat hair from my sleeves kissing someone in the warm cocoon of bed before the day started at it again, with inclement weather and dirty socks and dishes in the sink, and gratitude is hardly enough.
At it again
Today I felt like maybe, finally, I might be making progress. I can't really describe the way I've felt for the past couple of weeks, other than to say that I've felt like I've been drifting somewhere above myself, above my life. Out of touch, maybe, or tangled. Desultory. Haphazard. And this week has been all about coming down to earth. Getting on top of things. Organizing. It was a busy month, and maybe that is my excuse. Introverted by nature, non-stop wedding parties and a week long visit with my dearest of dear friends, and a weekend visit from my sister and her husband, packed my September to it's gills. Not to mention freelance work was eating up all my spare moments. The result: dislocation, distraction, doubt, disillusion, despondency. (Okay, so I'm suddenly alliteration drunk. But you get the idea.)
Either way, for the past couple of days since all the fun ended I've been moping about the house, doing heaps of laundry. SIDE NOTE: I kind of want to write another entire post about laundry, actually. How I had this groundbreaking moment watching my friend fold my laundry precisely, neatly, into these perfectly stacked rectangular piles of shirts and jeans and sweaters. Groundbreaking as in: it never occurred to me that the purpose of folding the damn laundry might be expanded to a) fitting more in one's drawers neatly and b) to reduce the amount of wrinkles in any given garment. I honestly have been folding laundry all these years because it's what you're supposed do with laundry, right? I mean, who doesn't fold laundry? But truthfully, I never put thought into it. Now, I am reformed. See? I simply must post more about this (with pictures!)--it's become a new obsession.
It's taken all week to sort myself out. But finally I'm starting to get the hang of my life again. I have my submissions calendar sorted out and some clear-cut goals, and some long term novel goals (40k words by the end of October) and some maybe sort of plans for an autumn party with the community of friends I am gradually starting to make here, and it all feels good.
It kind of astounds me how easily I got knocked off kilter in the past two months. I've felt so alarmingly fragile, up to my neck in angst and uncertainty that I've had hardly anything to post. Things have felt tenuous and flimsy around here financially lately, and that too adds to my apparent state of internal vertigo. My mind has been twirling all day long, but when I've come up for air, there has been nothing to put on the page. No way to capture the tightly wound, tugged-at feeling that's lodged itself in the pit of my stomach except maybe to say that a part of me has been feeling a little like a kite caught up in a tree, thrashing about in the wind. But less so today after eight loads of laundry, and listening to Selected Shorts while making apple sauce.
So. Hmmm. All this brings me to October.
I have plans for October. Real, practical, concrete plans to disentangle and make things happen around here, including more organization and less stress.
And I'm thinking of doing morning poems again, as a way to slip back into writing for real. I have done morning poems in the past, and have loved it when you have joined me. I've gotten so much this exchange. These small scraps of joy and arc and moment that we capture, first thing, before the blur of the day takes over; before the laundry piles up.
Are you in? The rules are really simple. Show up at the page every morning and write a poem. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be much of anything. All it needs to be is a small handful of words tossed up to the gods; an offering, a gift, a start to the day.
Laundry
A solitary plastic chickenfalls from among the denim and fleece; the lint trap is full again. This thing we do: wearing clothes, then washing them, goes on forever. Sometimes I like to imagine (at the a red light next to a Mexican boy with oily cheeks who is driving an El Camino, or walking through one of those superstore warehouses, where everything is wrapped in plastic including the last of summer’s succulent watermelons, each green globe swaddled in cellophane) everyone naked or feathered, or adorned in something less fretful and persnickety than the clothes we need so many of (rain boots with polka dots, and heels that sink into the soft sod as we try to run towards our friends at parties, and also negligee and belts and jackets made of wool or down) but we are human; adept at hiding things. Notes, lipstick stains from kisses, favorite marble; the small small bits of other people’s hearts and thoughts; ourselves. We are thieves, mimes, fakers with our clothes all pressed or stained, our laundry bulging with the remnants of things that tumble out unexpected, or get lost.
Suspended
I feel like a part of me is suspended above myself somewhere, caught among the helium balloon strings of my heart. Can't quite seem to find solid ground, yet, again. It's become a pattern for me lately.
Everything is gold and rust here: the light, the leaves, the barns bathed in late afternoon sun. Trying to catch my breath and find a rhythm today.
In my molskine quickly scribbled quotes. Together, they're where I'm at right now:
"I believe in everything that has not yet been said." ~ Rilke
"I write to discover what I know." ~ Flannery O'Connor
"The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as a part of the process. Ask different questions." ~ Bruce Mau
"It is as if mothers have two hearts and two bodies--one heart loves the babies, the other heart attends to the world; one body feeds the babies, the other body moves through ttime and space." ~ Elizabeth Lesser
Happily ever after...
...And now all three of my dearest girlfriends are married. The four of us climbed trees and talked Rilke and Kant in college. We ate ice cream by the pint, barefoot on the fire escape; skinny dipped, hiked to an island with swans, cried, laughed, and cooked and shared endless meals together. The end of an era. The start of another.
Glad to be back home. This month was non-stop. I spent the day folding laundry, setting goals and writing to-do. Bean has an ear infection. Sprout has two teeth. I have a lot of things to get done. Tomorrow it's go time.
Today is my Monday
There and back. Maine. 11 hours in the car each way with both boys & my best friend from forever. The wedding of a dear, beautiful friend. Them together. The windy, sunny days. Good lattes and sail boats in the town. Bean in brown converse, as the ring bearer. Sprout cutting his first two teeth (and not making a big deal out of it at all). Friends who love my kids. iPhone apps and silly putty in the car. Hardly any fussing from either boy (a momentous fact, really, seeing as we were literally on the road for 11 hours, with stops.) Back home, bed felt like heaven. Yesterday was a blur of catching up. And being sick with a head cold. Today is my Monday. Hi. I missed checking in here last week. This week: lots of photo posts, organizing my submissions calendar for the fall. Taking a few naps. Saying goodbye to my mother who is moving away. And another wedding of another dear, dear friend this Friday.
*
Things on my mind lately:* My novel. I'm scared to go back. * Running, hard. * Feeling moody. Often. * Finding my stride again, maybe. * Indian summer. * Wishing things were easier. * Getting a glimpse of what a house with TWO boys in it will be like. * Learning to check pockets stain treat laundry.
You?
Sitting down to write.
And there is sudden trepidation. Like always. Like skiing for the first time every season, or doing a flip turn in the pool. Even with practice, there is always this. These moments of blank screen when everything else seems more attractive/reasonable/safe.
Weekly Crushes
It seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago that I was clipping Bean into his ski boot bindings for the first time and sending him down the driveway. Now the first leaves are already golden and orange. Where has the summer gone?
The crickets know that snow is on its way. In the garden, fat pumpkins with girths rounder than Bean's hugs. My Bean, who has started a mixed-aged (Waldorf) kindergarten program, and comes home singing. My Bean who tells us about the enormous imaginary kangaroo that lives upstairs. My Bean, suddenly a big-little kid. Four and a half. Mischief around every turn. He is my favorite forever.
And then my baby boy, my little Sprout, coming up on 7 months old, impossibly. He is a chunk. Pure love. Grins always. He's been surfing the floor the past week or so, trying to crawl. In between attempts he's pleased as peas to sit in the center of a circle of pots and spoons, banging things and grinning. He's always cracking himself up. There are so many times throughout the day where I'll look over at him and feel my heart catch and then expand. He'll be smiling at me, watching me from across the room as I do things in the kitchen or fold laundry or type. He is my little Buddha. My reminder to be right here, now, in this precious, precious moment. He is my favorite always.
Also, some weekly blog crushes to share:
2 or 3 Things, Bliss, Le Love (can't help going here and smiling), listing quirks over at Cupcakes & Cashmere...(a quirk DH pointed out tonight while we rocked it in the basement gym---3 miles in 24:15 minutes---is that I love to watch bull riding. Really.)
Also, these houses (still brooding over treehouse plans, as you can tell.) This gorgeous little party. This amazing installation. It's how my heart feels, sometimes, lately. Overflowing, made of feathers, of air, of fragile things.
What are some of your crushes right now? Share please. Also~ what are you looking forward to this week?
Unfinished things
Certain things are never done. The wash for one; the spoons in the sink are always there again, and the bowls; the small hands that need scrubbing; the ripe things waiting for harvest in the garden, some silent and round under the dirt, or fat and humming with wasps, sides split open in the late summer sun.
These are days when the light is amber and still. The grasshoppers are huge, springing into the hedgerows as we run by. Their legs are always bent, poised again and again for the small prayer of almost-flight; temporary, dizzying, before they land again among brambles and gravel.
This. This life. It feels so small, so incredibly small and so enormous all at once.
Walking about the house gathering toys in the quiet that comes after small boys finally sleep and the dishwasher runs, I wonder if this can be enough for anyone? If anything is ever enough, if any heart beats regularly with contentment; or if to be alive always means to crave, to lunge, and long and push. We have our hearts after all, full of muscles that never sleep, and chambers secret even to us.
I put a wide mouthed jar of zinnias on the windowsill; follow the hawk with my eyes as I run. Its body is gold and white in the sun, circling against the blue. It is only there, present in the sky. Eyes like arrows, bones hollow, feathers tilting and lifting its small handful of life into the wind.
And like Little Boys
1. Treehouse, 2. Treehouse, 3. MAJ_The Ultimate Tree Fort II *, 4. 2nd February 2007, 5. Tree House, 6. DSC00145
We're building Bean a tree house and we're discovering that it's uncharted territory. DH never had a tree house. I grew up climbing trees with my sisters, and there were certainly a few make-shift tree forts that are scattered throughout my memory, but never a real honest tree house with a ladder and a roof.
Because neither of us have real experience we seem to get sucked into substituting nostalgia in its place, with dire consequences. Having spent most of my childhood with scraped knees and in trees, I picture a helter-skelter little tree nest tucked up in some branches with a few log stairs nailed into a tree trunk. DH's childhood was all about suburb sidewalks and and swimming pools and green lawns, so his image of the perfect tree house includes functional windows and an shingled roof.
Thus far we've settled on a platform built between three trees within eyesight of the kitchen window. Bean wants two stories, and a secret tunnel. I want to use logs from our property. DH wants everything to be built with two-by-sixes and six inch screws. We're a mess.
Really, I'm a mess. I am outnumbered, and this is becoming more and more apparent every day. I have no idea what to do with little boys, I am discovering. They are not like little girls (though apparently this might be my fault.) They like to be LOUD. They like to smash things, and run really fast, and make skid marks with dirt bikes and dangle from tree limbs. They like to make plastic alligators eat the heads off of Lego people, and they like to make sharks attack. They like to have their pancakes in the shape of monster faces, and if you make beets and polenta into a similar design (with the beets for bloody teeth) they will acquiesce and devour them.
Other than that, I have no idea what to do with little boys. Or specifically my little boy. My frog-catching, fearless, stubborn, shy, determined, goofy little boy who loves to use every 'big' word he hears, and who has an opinion about every single thing under the sun.
Take naps for example. What do you do with a little boy who is determined that he is beyond naps, but still desperately needs them? He becomes the monster when he's overtired--which is almost every afternoon. And what about refusing to wear certain articles of clothing? Or arguing about brushing teeth? Or? Basically, help. Mamas of boys, I need a primer, STAT. What are the top five most important things I should know/learn about parenting little boys? Because clearly, I'm in for it.
And also, about that tree house... What's your idea of a perfect tree house? What's essential? What's overkill?