push | pull
There is the bittersweet that comes from having things go exactly as they should and then be over; just as that feeling springs from things going exactly opposite to what was planned and all the loose ends that come from such moments of disappointment and disarray. This was our holiday: joy-filled and tense at turns; full of expectations and sparkly lights and glee, and also frustration. Family drama (his, not mine this time.) Stubborn boys. Heaps of snow, chocolate, caramel corn, and candle light. Singing carols. Good wine. Snowboarding for the first time.
And Bean insisting he knows how to do it already—then hurtling down the mountain at a speed that defines the term break neck, only to throw himself to the ground at frightening angles to stop. Twapity, thwack. And then he’d sit there dazed, distracted, and completely clueless as an entire ski school made a zig zag around him, as though he were the outermost pole in a slalom course.
My firstborn is not a child who wants to be taught.
At least not by his mama. And I should have known better—swimming lessons have been a disaster two years running. Ice skating had similarly poor outcome. Still, T and I are lovers of the outdoors; of sports; and of doing them together…and Bean asked, no, begged for a snowboard for Christmas.
The scene was set. A perfect white powder day, the day after Christmas, just the three of us on the mountain. Good tunes in the car on the way up. The promise of hot chocolate. New gear.
But he would only do it his way. For two painstaking runs. And then he wanted to stop.
Because it was hard.
Oh expectations.
I am aware that there is a very salient lesson in all of this. Something about letting go of attachment; about not having expectations; about letting things just be, moment by moment.
But there is another fierce, plucky, determined part of me that doesn’t settle for that all of the time. Carpe diem was not a term derived by someone sitting on their laurels.
And I believe there is something mighty to be said for perseverance. For doing something even though it is hard; maybe because it is hard. Willpower is invaluable as an adult. As is self reliance.
The outcome?
He’s going to take some lessons. End of story. (Even though I'm internally waffling: is he ready? Is he big enough for half day lessons? Does he have the stamina? What if I ruin sports for him forever?)
I’m starting to understand that this parenting thing doesn’t ever get easier. Sure, he can dress himself, and poop without assistance and he can be left unattended to clean up his room and he won’t pull every tissue out of the box while doing so. But the emotional complexity is increasing daily. Control. Compassion. Give. Take. And figers crossed: maybe a couple gifted teachers along the way to smooth the rough edges of our attempts.
How do you decide when to push your kid and when to let them call the shots?
here in this life
It’s snowing hard from a pale sky, the kind of snow that makes me grin and want to cry at once: it’s so beautiful, white on white on white.
And I’m back in my life again, after a hiatus of days, weeks, the intensity of a semester behind me and in a few days, Christmas. Family, and plans to make croissants from scratch, and bleary eyes on Saturday morning at 5:30AM when the boys will inevitably wake, eager and wide-eyed with wonder.
The past two nights we’ve watched old movies: Miracle on 34th Street and It’s A Wonderful Life. I’ve never seen either one, and oh, how I love them both. Nostalgia is a funny thing, isn’t it? It’s something inherently human, isn’t it? To want and long for what’s gone by. It’s maybe one of the things that defines our humanity. Our awareness of the past tense, just like our awareness of the future plant’s us squarely in the very fleeting, very mortal moment of the present.
In this moment I’m wearing torn, paint spattered jeans instead of a carefully fitted dress. I’m here in this present of my life, and out the window blue jays and cardinals gather in the lilac hoping for seed. Streaks of blue and read against the landscape of brown and white and gray. By the end of winter their colored plumage is something I cling to in a monochrome world; everything drawn out: the time it takes to leave or arrive an almost endless choreography of outerwear.
Today it’s the solstice. The wondrous darkest day, half a year away from when the light lasted until nearly ten and the fields hummed with crickets and danced with fireflies at dusk.
Tonight we’ll light candles at dinner and sing. We’ll hang the prisms that the Advent Fairy brought in the windows to make the light dance on future sunny days, and maybe we’ll go sledding, all of us on the toboggan hurtling down the driveway in a flash of laughter.
The best way to get a tree
Unwind
Oh hello!
What have you been up to?
The past few days have been my very own Alice in Wonderland gone awry: coding and building a website from the ground up--using all new (to me) tools has made my brain ache and my body long for movement. It's still in it's demo phase, but I'm excited to share it. Go take a peak around.
Outside it keeps snowing: gorgeous dreamy flakes and our Christmas will be white, white, white. In the tree out the dining room window a red cardinal waits, wondering when I'll put the bird feeders out. Things have been on hold around here as the semester came to a symphonic end. Everything colliding with many unexpected technical failures: the learning curve is steep when you're a novice.
Of course, I love every minute: I'm like that. But honestly, this last week was really hard. I really started to miss all the things that define the day to day of my life: wrestling on the floor with my boys; exercise; painting my toenails; making out; going out with friends; decorating for the holidays. Everything was temporarily abandoned as I hunched at the table and produced create a website; two essays; and three art projects.
Now: I'm a free girl for a few days--but I have some serious (and super exciting!) book business that must be attended to, and how! Cannot wait to share--but can't yet. Just grin with me & keep your fingers crossed. And thank you, thank you for your patience with getting rewards and all the rest. I haven't forgotten. Oh no, not at all. It's just: I never do things half way. It's going to be awesome. Oh yes.
Today we are heading out to cut a tree and tonight our neighbors have a Christmas nativity that they've been putting on with the neighborhood kids in their barn for twenty years. It's magical: warmth and caroling and kids with halos and angel wings and donkeys and lamas and lambs all acting out the story of the birth of Jesus. I love it. It's one of my favorite things about the holiday actually: this simple, old fashioned celebration that speaks to the heart and the truth of this holiday. Peace and goodwill and community. And also cookies and sledding after.
Speaking of... we're having some friends for some cookie decorating fun tomorrow and I'm wondering: what is your absolute favorite holiday cookie recipe?
nothing but scraps
Impossibly, I am still awake. Smacking my head into code. Ready, ready, ready for the semester to end. Ready for some time disconnecting from intellectual work and reconnecting with play and this here space. In the meantime: bed, because nothing else makes sense and then tomorrow more work than is possible in less time than is conceivable. Rinse and repeat until Wednesday. Then, no matter what: yoga + dinner with girlfriends and the semester will be more or less complete. Whew.
the very smallest of things
The very smallest of things have made my morning: The internet came back on so I don't have to leave the house early to do work. There was juuust enough milk for my latte. The snow plow guy just came and plowed my driveway so I can get to class this afternoon. It's snowing: fat, fluffy, gorgeous flakes. The fire is warm and snug and my cat is curled at my feet.
This week is go, go, go time. The end of the semester. Super big projects all due. And then a few weeks off--including a week out West visiting my sister and her sweet new babe. Cannot wait for the break. For cookie baking and decorating; for playing with my boys; for cleaning my house. For all the mundane joyful stuff that I've put on hold to push through these final deadlines.
where I've been:
The craziest storm ever. Extremely localized. 75mph winds. Trees snapped everywhere. Needless to say, no power. We're at the inlaws, waiting it out. Likely no power until Sunday. Just in time for three major deadlines. Oh yes.
Tell me something to cheer me up! What tradition are you most looking forward to for the holidays?
Thankful*
I took these pictures yesterday, out my front door. Like heaven, the way the storm came through spreading the arc of a double rainbow and then left the world golden and blue and vermillion with the setting sun. I'm so thankful for this place that I call home--and also this place here, where I can connect with all of you ( hit m 1,000 post here just last week!) Also today I got lovely, really super awesome news about my book--that is still not in stone enough to share details on, but enough to grin about big time and to be thankful for.
I've spent the last three days working intensely on digital projects: Flash, After Effects, video. By this afternoon I felt a little like a wild animal, and when the golden afternoon light filled up the sky again I pulled on running close and fled the house for a long run while the shadows grew long and blue across the road.
Tomorrow I'm taking a digital break to be with family... I'm craving that: a reason not to check in and be in front of the screen for a day.
Happy Thanksgiving! xo, C
Code switching
And it’s then the milk spills. TWICE in one sitting. It’s then that they fight over every single thing. Then that the bigger one crashes into the littler one, and the little one comes to me wailing, his mouth full of blood.
It’s then that tears are inevitable—from me, if not from them. [More...]
A list from today:
* Alone all day to work on projects with only the cat for company * A phone call with my older sister whose little boy is 2 weeks old today. Love hearing his wee little fusses in the background. * A pomegranate * Starting to 'get' ActionScript 3.0 just a little * Filling this sweet elf house of Bean's with color
What are some highlights from your day?
This moment
At the counter after school. Ramin noodles + scallions in warm broth. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole + his banjo on the stereo. And for a moment we were just there at the counter, the three of us slurping the extra long noodles and giggling and drinking the broth straight from the bowl and I could feel how we were at the eye of every storm that had come or would come: the afternoon ahead of us with its various unravelings and tantrums. But right then, I let myself breathe and unfurl a little into the delicious present...and then I went to get my camera because the stripes and the noodles and the little boy grins were making me want to explode with happiness. Yes.
Emergent Process
Today the first snow. Not really the fat flakes of later winter, but the quiet delicate fluttering of small flecks of snow nonetheless. The sky is gray except for where the clouds are pulled thin, and then the sun shines through with milky light. Out my window birds arrive: chickadees, blackbirds, crows. The alight among the bare twigs, and preen, the slight fleeting snow falling on their feathers.
This is as close as I’ve come this week, to being out doors: watching from my window as the world turns to winter outside. And I can hardly believe it: winter, just like that. The days darker, and darker still. Inside, I’m at my desk; an itemized to-do list hanging on the wall in front of me: 34 projects of varying degrees of critical importance to be accomplished by December. Two weeks.
And it’s intense. That’s for certain. Especially with two small boys underfoot. This past week I was doing the solo parent thing which forced every single minute to double in value. Not longer. Just worth more. In every minute I’m mother and student. Writer and novice programmer. Digital artist and researcher. All of it, every minute.
But when people ask me how I’m liking school, often with an “I’m so glad it’s you and not me” tone of voice, I can’t help myself: I love it. {more...}
hump day + systems thinking
By Wednesday night I always feel a little pummeled, like I've been swimming for three days straight, and this week has been particularly intense because T has been away on a trip to California for work and so it's all mama, all the time when the boys are here. Also, Wednesday = six hour straight of class and by the end my mind revolts. Tonight it was all about DVR and recorded Glee episodes (What is it about that show by the way? I want to hate it, but end up kind of digging it every time. Why?) This week I've had a minor breakthrough about myself as a learner. I'm a highly, highly visual learner (right!? Who could have guessed??) But what I didn't realize is that I've overly relied upon my visual capabilities to compensate for organizational shortcomings--and while I can visually tell you where everything is in my studio or on my desktop--once a file gets moved on my computer, I'm at a loss. And truthfully, files are in a state of creative chaos. To make matters worse I harbor unnamed skepticism for burning anything onto a CD and then deleting it from anywhere. But I am determined to reform.
How do you organize your desktop, your photos, your Word files, etc? I'd love, love, love to get some peaks into the way all you creatives organize your work on your computer. Please share!
A snapshot from today:
The light of late autum is gold, gold, gold. It fills our south-west facing dining room all afternoon; honey on the table, honey on the floor, and we’re drawn to it like bees, sitting barefoot, my son drawing while I write. Above the bare branches of the trees, insects swarm; the last warm days a small ellipsis of insect procreation. Out the back door the chickens come, inquisitive, pecky, turning over every crumpled leaf in search of bugs not burrowed down. The shadows fall long, longer, across the valley spreading indigo lace below the trees. Each chicken has a shadow twice her size, imaginary hens on stilts, walking slantwise across the leaf strewn grass.
Sprout is napping and Bean and I are each occupied in our own way. Me: editing. Him: drawing blueprints for gnome houses and prototypes for robotic flying cars.
Suddenly he leaps back from his work table, “AAAAH! Something scary with pinchers just ran behind my desk!” he screams with dramatic flare.
His eyes are genuinely huge, but then he sees me smiling. I cannot hold the laughter back. “Really?” I ask. “Is it going to eat you?”
Now his eyes grow wider. He looks off for a minute into space.
“It cannot eat me.” He concludes hesitantly. “I am bigger than it. I could just…I could just squish it. Right?”
Oh how I love this silly boy of mine.
In it
At the doorway, Sprout hovers. It's just us today, getting things done. He's so good: I make him a snack in a wooden bowl and tell him to play and he does, mostly, coming to my doorway to check in every so often. The hall is wide--a perfect playroom, and toys are strewn inevitably, a cacophony of things with wheels rattling down the length of it. I put on my headphones so I can think. This mix helps this morning. I go back to the page I am editing. There isn't any other way except to be in it, is there?
What are you in the thick of today?
Almost 6
I just had to share Bean's kindergarten photo. Swoon. He is such a rascal. Almost 6 and full of determination and eccentricity and delight. He is all about bossy, and "mine is better." He is all about talking all the time, inserting himself into ever conversation, chattering over everyone and everything else going on. He is all about drama. Tears. Howls. High Drama.
Like this morning when he fell off a stool at the counter and then hit his plasma car. It was comical. He was FINE. Totally fine. And yet you'd think he had lost a limb. The wailing. You can tell he is delighting in every minute of it. There is almost a little grin at the edge of his face even as he's wailing. This little guy has always been one to burst into tears: over the thought of Lyle Lyle stuck in the zoo, over a lost twist tie; over anything. It's something I love about him: how tender he is. He sees the world in such a sensitive, thoughtful, particular way.
In my head he's still 4. How is it possible he's almost 6?
++++
Also: My sweet sister had her baby this morning at 12:10am! An 8lb, 6oz little boy! So excited and happy for them I can hardly stand it.
Early sundown
It's always so bittersweet, setting the clocks back and waking to light slanting across the frosty grass; the sky pale with a lemon colored dawn. Then, when the day seems just to be really getting good, the shadows are already long and night arrives before I'm ready: starry skies, the temperature falling, pitch black by dinner.
I like the way time is malleable on this day though. The way we all collectively agree to say that on this day we have another hour. (It makes me wonder: what else could we collectively agree on? )
It's this time of year that I always end up wanting to do some redecorating; change my blog theme; organize my bookmarks; put candles on the windowsills; pull out my warm boots and pretty scarves.
I'm craving new sources of creativity. What is inspiring you lately? ...your favorite piece of clothing for late autumn? ...new music have you found recently? ...blogs are you crushing on? ...books you are reading?
big messes + small deceptions
Today was all about getting things ready for winter: tossing our fat ghoulish pumpkins into the compost and raking up piles of wet leaves, mostly to be jumped in by Sprout and Bean. It was cold and our cheeks were pink after an hour spent outdoors, mowing the lawn a final time for the season and gathering up the stray bits of bark left from the wood that we stacked. Inside, after pulling off muddy boots and wet gloves we made hot chocolate: unsweetened cocoa and sugar melted with a bit of boiling water, then stirred into frothed milk with a touch of cream. Little boy moustaches, happy grins, and only one spill. “Uh oh, uh oh” Sprout exclaimed as his drink pooled into his lap.
By the end of every day my boys are covered head to tow with the evidence of their days: mud and chocolate, paint on their shirts, pasta sauce on their elbows. Are all little boys messy, or are mine particularly so? Reckless in glee and sensory delight. They’ve both grown this month; a late autumn growth spurt. One of my favorite things about our house is the corner wall between the kitchen and the den where we mark their growth with stubby pencils or whatever pen we can find.
“Let’s see if I grew!” Bean will exclaim gleefully after eating a particularly enormous serving of pasta or a heaping plate of blueberry pancakes.
Once we were a little overzealous and recorded his growth: a remarkable half inch in a month. The following month we discovered our error: he’d shrunk. Or so it seemed. The line made from his head to the square edge of the book was below the mark we’d already made.
“Did I really shrink?” Bean asked wide eyed.
“You did,” I lied without blinking. “That’s what happens when you don’t eat your veggies.”
Oh yes I did.
Circles and lines
A trip to Boston and back in two days. Too many hours in the car; rain pelting, pummeling; grey, on grey, on grey. Mist hanging low among the pines and oaks, their leaves brown now, the last deciduous trees to loose their leaves. The boys in the back seat eating fig newtons and building things with legos. Four hours, then traffic, then dinner with dear friends and bedtime for little guys in unfamiliar sleeping arrangements, and wine and in the morning, the penguins, as promised.
Now, post workout, headphones on, I sink into the quiet circle of my thoughts. It's a slow descent. Like a plan landing. I circle around myself, procrastinating, getting the runway in order. Some nights the runway is obscured with mist; with rain; with memories; with gulls circling; other's it's a quick hard landing, and then I'm in it, fingers flying, QWERTY, and blink, an hour is gone.
mountains at the back of my mind
*
A trip to Boston tomorrow, solo, with both boys, and I am writing lists for not forgetting: string cheese and juice boxes and etch-a-sketches and extra pairs of pants.
*
An email from an editor (the editor?) wondering about the status of the book; and I have lump in my throat because the past month has been very quiet on that front. I have ideas, and I’m working, but slowly. It’s so good, so good, but is it what the editor wants?
It is more prose poem than essay, more wonder, than advice, more solace than suggestion. It is a reason, to show up, to pause, to rest with the empty space on the page; to linger with the fragments of image, with the telltale narrative of a day lived one moment after the next, spreading like concentric circles, widening the view from here, from this moment right now.
Is this important?
More important than market? What of blockbuster hits, what of print dying and all that jazz? Do I listen to that ruckus, or just make what springs up urgently?
What do you think?