Gratitude

The sky that twinkles. The bite of fall in the air. The people who read, encourage, comment. The way my transplanted hydrangea has shot out new leaves all over the place. The smell of little sweaty feet. The smell of yeast bread rising. The Phillies shirt from a friend that wears like a hug. The wonders of the internet, text-messaging, telephones and easy communication. The kind of difficult communication that makes us stop and think and wonder how we can do better. The kind of silent communication that comes in hugs and glances and a casual patting of my arm or playing with my hair. The health of my family. The answering of prayers. The spaces of light and openness. The consolation of friends. The common experience. The history of a love. The funny things you did when you were younger that make you giggle today when you need to remember that things are fun. The people who will call you and remind you of those things. The buoyancy of life. The hope. The faith. The possibilities. The small excitements that add up to general joy. The pain. The defeat. The opportunity to get up again. The love. Definitely the love. In all of this, love.

Please add more of your own. It will be a river. It has nothing to do with page views, number of comments, good writing, right or wrong, personal or universal. This is a tribute. To life, to gratitude, to connection. Deepest gratitude to Tara who reminded me today of why I really keep blogging.

I Hope I Never...

There was a great big cloud that filled up the Sound and stopped right at the water's edge where we stood in the sunshine.

I hope I never get used to things like that.
I hope it always surprises me how the stones on the beach are worn so smooth and how the tides lay them out like expensive landscaping, only better.
I hope I never grow tired of watching my wee girl drawn to the water as if by magnetic force.
I hope it never stops amazing me how even with a fever, she will be silenced, energized, mesmerized by the surf while she communes, picking around in the seaweed, burying her toes and watching, watching, watching while the tide rolls in.
I hope I never forget that if there are objects near a body of water, my small, burly boy will throw them in, brush his hands with satisfaction and turn to throw some more.
I hope it never ceases to amuse me how he must find the largest rock and try to lift it, how he calculates strange distances behind his eyes and asks me if we can do impossible things.
I hope my breath never stops catching over the mountains and valleys and lakes and rivers and the trees, so invincible and fragile and huge.
I hope I never lose the butterflies that swim in my tummy when we lie down to sleep under the stars and laugh into the night as the fire dies and tell each other the same jokes that no one else would understand.
I hope I am never immune to the dirt between my toes and the smoke in my hair and the magic of fresh, hot coffee in the middle of the forest.
I hope these eyes of mine never stop seeing the endless beauty, the possibility, the minutiae, the bare and open hearts, the magic, the good, the life in all that surrounds me.

The cloud stopped there on the edge of the Sound and we stood in the sunshine and we watched as the waves rolled in, unexpected and broke at our feet. Through a sightless fog, these waves just kept rolling in.

They Bob

They bob.
They wink and wave and smile, fall over and get back up again.
They sputter and shake like puppies, bewildered and offended at a sudden change of events.
But they bob.

They float back to the surface, reaching for the sun.
Their energy.
It's as if they draw it from the flailing of arms and legs.
Like solar powered perpetual motion machines.

They've drunk half the lake by now.
Falling, mouths wide open, laughing.
Bellies full of algae, sand, plankton, small fish?
But they bob.

There have been wild whoops.
The excitement of a few dollars' spending money, some ice cream, a penny on the ground.
There have been squeezed-so-hard-eyes-shut-in-the-effort hugs.
The gratitude of small gestures, the dawning realization of a world so much larger than themselves.
There have been sullen mutterings.
The little indignation of inconvenience required of them.
There have been torrents of tears.
The injuries of person, of heart, of feelings that come from being the smallest in the room, the ones with the least say in things.
There have been shouts, giggles, mad dancing, the maniacal laughter of using that last ounce of energy to just let go.
There have been tiny snores and snuffles in the night, small bodies seeking solace in something familiar, to lie like a spoon and be sheltered, safe in the soft warmth of their origins that they know like breathing, like food.
There have been explosions of every color: mean red, the indigo of loneliness, the violet hues of twilight come too soon, the verdant joy that rolls like hills and breathes life into its surroundings, the firecracker oranges of cackling mirth, the stormy blacks of despair, indecision, exhaustion, frustration, concession.

And still they bob.
These large and messy presences, bound so tightly into small, lean bodies.
These impossibly buoyant little souls of whom much is demanded.
They roll with the changing tides, slip under, stand up, sputter, smile and do it again.
They reach out, grasp each other's wrists and tug.
They tumble, collapsed into a heap of each other and come up fighting.
Fighting for air, for space, for solid footing, for a place in the sun.

Love seems an inadequate word for what happens inside me for them.
They grip my viscera with their grabbing little hands and eyelashes and that tilt of small chins, a wink, a sudden tear or smile. The curves in the backs of their little knees, their strong little shoulders, the moles on each of their cheeks, their breath, those dark and endless eyes.
They grip me and they pull me up, an aching lightness fills me up.
They take me with them.
And they bob.

Remembering My Lines

"Honey! Time to get up. You don't want to be late for your last day of school!"

A few months ago, the jBird and I were lying on the floor reading together. In the book she was reading, the main character's mother said this to her daughter. jBird read it to me in that sing-song voice that denotes a friendly and warm adult.

"Can you say this to me when it's my last day of school?" she asked me.
"Sure," I said. "You want me to remind you it's the last day of school?"
"No, I want you to say it to me just like that," and she repeated the line in the same sing-song Mother voice.
"No problem," I said.
"You have to remember to do it."

The mothers in the books she reads are either perfect or absent. The perfect ones are attorneys, astrophysicists, veterinarians. But they always seem to be on vacation. They always have the correct words to say to their daughters. They are warm and loving when they need to be, but stay out of the way most of the time. They are these benign, flat characters who serve a certain purpose and then fade into the background. The absent ones are another sort of wish-fulfillment, I suppose. My jBird is intrigued by orphans. Some of the mother characters are so horrible that it is a relief they are gone. Others are an ephemeral snapshot of beautiful perfection kept close to the child's heart, but not interfering all that much when they want to go chase fairies or something. These things fascinate my independent little girl.

Her books never say things like:

 Daisy's mother was a complicated woman. Her jeans never seemed to stay up. One of Daisy's favorite games to play with her mother was to yell 'Coin slot!' and stick her finger in the spot where her mother's jeans had slipped down. Mother sometimes drifted off in the middle of sentences and left Daisy wondering what she was even talking about. She was by turns dreamy and disconnected, crabby and blunt, present and attentive; but she was always loving. Daisy was never exactly sure what her mother did. She would sometimes spend hours at the computer or writing in a journal and then she would suddenly get up and go on a mad cleaning spree or take Daisy and her brother to the park. Mother could talk for what seemed like forever about certain things, but then other times answered with a distracted 'Mmm-hmm.'

They just don't write moms like that for kids. I'm not even sure that they should. My voracious little reader escapes into books for hours at a time, her favorite place to read is sitting in the tree in front of our house. She absorbs these characters and scenarios and tries to fit them into her world. She is still young and doesn't quite realize that her world is richer, more textured and interesting than the formulaic stories she reads. After all, she has no real fairies that come and talk to her or clans of cats who come to her for help. I remember being eight. I remember imagining the worlds of my books while playing in the woods. I remember thinking sometimes how much easier my favorite characters had it. I remember wishing my mom would be more like the moms in the books. These were things I never would have dared ask my own mother, so it thrilled me to my very childish soul when my jBird asked me to say the lines from her book. That kind of openness and innocence in a gesture of wishing is something that brings me to my knees with gratitude. I am more than happy to oblige.

This morning we woke up on the couch. My jBird suffers from chronic insomnia and last night was a little rough. In the wee hours she had finally fallen asleep and she lay there snuggled against me, warm and safe, mouth open and breathing her little snaggle-toothed halitosis into my face. She's getting older, but when she's sleeping, she looks every bit of my baby girl still. I watched her sleep for a few minutes, trying to squeeze the last drops of silence out of the morning, trying to give her just a few more minutes to restore that whirring mind of hers. I kissed her forehead, stroked her hair and said:

"Honey... it's time to get up. You don't want to be late for your last day of school..." in that lilting voice of fictitiously perfect mothers.

She stirred and smiled a tiny jack-o-lantern for me, and snuggled closer. I often miss my cues. Sometimes I step all over other people's lines. Sometimes I burst into the scene and start reciting a soliloquy from an entirely different act. Almost always, I improvise and confuse the other players. But sometimes, sometimes... sometimes I get it right. I arrive on cue and remember my lines. My ovation is that little smile and an extra snuggle.

jBird and her real mom.

In time, she will realize that life is not like her books. That people, even people who love her with all they have to give, are fallible and messy and real. She will come to see that this drama we live is a rich story unfolding without formula, without a script. I know my daughter and I believe she will come to appreciate this. Just as I hope that she comes to appreciate that even though her mother is not the glossy perfect mother she reads about, that she is a real mother. A woman who tries and sometimes fails. A woman who loves her more than she even knows how. A woman who will say the false lines that she requested to show her how real the love is she has for her.

Tending My Peonies

One of my ladies from last year

My peonies are about to bloom. I say "my peonies" but I am only their custodian. They were planted long before my tenure here and they don't belong to me. I supervise them and trim them and watch them for rot and growth and tend to their needs, but they aren't mine.

They are about to bloom, though. They are a rich and vibrant pink. Deep, almost red in their centers, and showy, bright and lush. In March, the leaves come back and the stems grow long and supple from the brown and worn out wreckage from last year. In April they grow their buds. These small, hard green golf balls of possibility. They sneak in suddenly among the riot of the loud-mouthed daffodils and tiny, brave crocuses. When the flash and hoot of early spring color starts to fade, they are there with their buds, waiting patiently to crack and open.

In a week or so, they will unfurl. An impossible clown car of petals and fragrance unfolding from the buds. Their beauty will be so heavy, they will bend their stems with exhaustion and lay their heads down on the grass to catch a bit of sun and take a break from all that brilliance. They will smile hello to me as I walk up my front steps and they will wave their petals when the kids run past. A few of them will be invited to come inside and sit in a crystal throne on my table.

In a few more weeks, those petals will start to fade and drop. They will make small throw rugs, hot pink against the green grass. They will eventually be odd bald stems, with tiny stamen hairs sprouting from their crowns. For the rest of the summer, they will be dark green foliage, almost black against a backdrop of other colors whose time has come. I miss them and bemoan their passing, but wait until the fall to hack back the tired stems and leaves nearly to the ground.

Next year, it will happen again and the delight and surprise will repeat. These grand old ladies of mine know some things. They know that there is a time for resting, a time to let the quick and noisy ones take center stage. They also know when it is their time to open large and resplendent; to bask in the spotlight and accept their due. They know that time is fleeting and only part of the whole of things. They know when it's time to shed their finery and store up reserves for the winter ahead. They are as comfortable with brown and bald as they are with enticing and lush. They know this. They know that ending is part of beginning again, that pruning is part of growth, and that decay is part of nurture.

They are not my peonies. I do not own them. I tend them and trim them, enjoy them and love them. Most of all, I try to listen to them.

Feathering My Nest

There be geese on my horizon. I am wrestling with geese right now. They are flapping and honking and beaking  me. I love a good wrestle. One of us will emerge victorious and when the mud is washed off and the cuts and bruises are bandaged, I will display the fruit of those efforts here. Meanwhile, there are feathers everywhere. And there are things that come with Monday that preclude extended wrestling matches.

Here are some things from my weekend that I collected:

The feel and weight of bamboo and silk yarn in my fingers and across my hook. The drape and the sheen of the fabric they made together by the marvelously simple repetition. Hypnotic. Stitched into the whole experience is the knowledge that my mom will wear this sweater as she embarks on a brand new adventure, a life-long dream, and a courageous act of healing.

My jBird on my lap. So heavy, her head sticks up taller than mine, her boniness digs into me as she snuggles, her legs drape almost to the floor. But she sits and snuggles still. She turns the eyes toward me from an angle I've seen then since her birth. So dark and intense and thin veneers for everything under the surface. Her dimples and gums as she grins and closes her eyes, hugs and is happy.

The Chief Lou, who smiles and encourages and loves. I watched him flirt with the old ladies at church. I watched them twitter and giggle and clutch his arm in hilarity. He was telling them how much he liked my leather pants and my new haircut. He spreads ease to people in a way I find enviable, and I watched him, for a few short moments make a recent widow laugh uncontrollably and feel young and daring and fun again. My heart opens and opens and opens with love for him.

My Hooligan and his best friend sitting together, sharing books. She is a little younger, a little smaller and he knows it. Ever conscious, ever gentle, he shares and defers to her. They draw each other pictures and whisper secrets in each other's ears. They hold hands and pray. The Hooligan prays that "everyone who might get lost will find their way home" and I blink away tears. He tells her a secret and her laugh is explosive, surprisingly deep. In a fit of pure delight, he kisses her on the cheek and plays with her hair. He does this because this is how he expresses love to people that matter to him. An innocent, pure gesture of genuine affection for his friend.

A dear friend lolled about on the floor of my crowded living room with me. She saw my kitchen in disarray. She was close enough to the carpet to see the spots. It didn't matter and we talked of things that mattered. We talked like friends in comfort, silly, teasing, serious, wondering, blurting, madness. Three hours passed and I wondered why she thought it was time to go. Good friends are rare. Especially the kind that don't mind that your kitchen is a mess.

I picked apart a ball of fear in much the same way I do my beloved yarn. So tangled and claustrophobic at first, it's easier to just chuck it in the back of the closet and forget about it. It's not easier, though. I know this. I sat and unraveled, patiently, vigilantly. Strand by strand I sorted it out. I picked it apart and untangled the knots. I wound it into something useful and beautiful. The beauty of decision, of aligning and analyzing, of letting go and watching it whip too fast to see, round and round on my winder, turning it into something solid and manageable.

I will be back to speak of water fowl soon. In the meantime, read my inspiration most fowl: dbstevens at Kicking Corners has ruffled my mental feathers with this and this.

Short and Very, Very Sweet

This is the Hooligan a couple of summers ago. This little video clip is a happy place I go to when I need to remember that things are beautiful.

In case you can't understand his 3-year-old speech, he's saying:
"For the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

This is for Marie at The (Not Always) Lazy W.

Leaping Liebsters!

It is at the end of a long day that I finally sit down to write. There was this coffee to be drunk with a friend, there was knitting to be done, there were monkeys to ferry about, there were delicious chocolate cupcakes with the most beautiful blood orange frosting to eat, there were library books, magazines and movies, there was a flat tire and a dark and rainy walk with monkeys who did not complain, only said "What an adventure!" Soon there will be cuddling by the fire and the eating of take-out with the monkeys all fed and bathed and put to bed.

But first, some gratitude to express. It's a great day when I get to be profusely grateful. I find that most days provide me plenty to be grateful for.

In the last week or so I have been tagged for both the Versatile Blogger Award and the Liebster Award. They both have their separate set of rules that go with them which I am going to ignore, if you don't mind. I will, however, tell you a little about the two ladies who were kind enough to give me these awards.

Kristen at Four Hens and a Rooster is really the girl who does it all. She maintains her delightful blog, she works in social media as a professional - which means I kowtow to her and her knowledge of such mysterious things - and she also started a group blogging site for parents facing some tricky ages at Ten To Twenty Parenting. She saw a gap in the blog world for this sort of writing and advice and so she filled it. It seems people tend to stop blogging about their kids when they stop being so little and cute and start to face some real-life kinds of challenges. All of my many hats - as a mother, a blogger, a writer, a woman and just as a person - to Kristen and her boundless energy and good will. Mwah!

Dawn at Alphabet Salad had me at the title of her blog. And then to click over and find all of her lovely images of vintage typewriters... bliss before I ever read a word. Dawn's blog is entertaining and thoughtful and always interesting. She's slogging through the NaBloPoMo world for many of the same reasons I am - the discipline, the practice, the dream of writing more, more, more. In the process you get to read about words themselves, her lovely old house, and interesting memories connecting her to the present. And, get this... she taught herself html. Again, hats are flying. I am inspired daily by her dedication to the craft of writing, even when she doesn't feel like it. And she's Canadian and I have a soft spot the size of Toronto for Canadians.

So thank you, ladies! I am honored indeed, to be included in such fine company. I told Kristen the other day I felt like I'd crashed an awesome party. So I'm sitting here, snarfing canapes, trying not to spill my drink on the rug, and making appalling small talk.

Also, as you may recall, tomorrow is Leap Blog Day. If you're just desperate to read something by yours truly, you can find me guest blogging over at Southern Fried Children, where Kelly was kind enough to let me traipse through (heaven knows why. Seriously, while you're there, you should just skip my post and read her archives. Twice I've had to have the Heimlich done to me from choking on things from laughing so hard.)
Also, you can find a different post by moi over at Faith In Ambiguity. Tara and I have decided to swap spaces for the day and I get the far better end of the deal.

Let me tell you about Tara. Her posts just suck you in. She's led such an interesting life - heavily populated with animals who need her salvation - and she writes about every aspect of it with inimitable poignancy and humor. She's self-deprecating without being self-pitying; she winds her stories around your senses with lyrical prose and a original wit. She's likely to write about anything, and no matter the subject matter - her boys, her animals, living with chronic pain, her mother's penchant for action figures, cooking a squash,  blogging frustrations, and anything else - she draws you in with her words and takes you with her. You all are in for a treat tomorrow, I promise.

I leave you now, for my couch and my love beckon, with some words from Robert Louis Stevenson:
"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

The Gift of This

This.
This is my favorite part of Christmas. This twinkly, firelight quiet.
Monkeys are scrubbed and brushed and tucked away with books and kisses and hugs and drinks of water.
Little snores will be lilting down the stairs in a few minutes.
And this. It settles like a sigh over the house.
The planning is done.
No more shopping, no more traveling, no more making lists.
Just this.
We pad around and shush and giggle and shush again while we stuff stockings, wrap a few last presents and put them under the tree.
 No hurry, no rush. Just this.
This basking in my family.
This quiet teamwork with my soul mate.
The quiet pride in our little people.
The quiet time together to reflect on our year, our monkeys, our life.
This quiet, simple good.
The rest of the world melts away in the circle of warmth and light that surrounds us.
Nothing matters for a while  but the precious heads under this roof.
It's us and we're here and we're strong.
No matter what the year has brought us, we can always look back with joy.
We can always look ahead with peace.
There is faith here, there is love, there is safety, there is strength. There is this.
This is my favorite part.
This.

Giving Thanks

Here are a few things I am thankful for nearly every day. In no particular order...

1. My best friend and husband. He's the best thing that ever happened to me and he happens to me over and over again every day.

2. My intellectual fairy princess and my sweet & tender hooligan. They are two marvelous little people who tumbled into my life at their own special times and places and brought magic.

3. My family, both by blood and by marriage. We're a big, crazy, raggedy group of people that make a mosaic of fun and love and support that I wouldn't trade for anyone else's.

4. Health and youth and freakish good looks.

5. Clay. Also permanent markers, shiny surfaces, coffee mugs, writing tablets.

6. $1 Sausage McMuffins

7. Electricity and washing machines and KitchenAid mixers and reliable city transportation and all the modern conveniences that make my life a little bit easier.

8. Relationships and challenges and fears and insecurities and all the things that make my life a little bit harder and force me to grow.

9. Sea breezes and rainy days.

10. When the sun peeks through rain clouds like a smile through tears.

11. Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

12. My wood stove and good, seasoned fire wood.

13. The sounds of trains and foghorns in the night.

14. Good music.

15. Good food.

16. Dancing.

17. Laughter.

18. People who say remarkably nice things to total strangers. Case in point: this amazing blogging community I've discovered this month.

19. My dad and Mr. Roy and my Grandma Edna & Papa Bill, Mr. Bud - the people I've lost in the last few years who left so much with me, showed me how to live in this world with goodness and light and how to make an exit with dignity and grace.

20. My faith and the faith of so many who surround me. 

21. The people in my life who are shouldering extra heavy burdens right now with high spirits and aplomb. You are champions.

22. The fact that on a clear day I can stand on my street and see snow-capped mountains in the distance.

23. The tiny maple tree in my front yard that heralds the seasons with brilliance.

24. People who don't complain. The ones that quietly go about their business and make this place more pleasant.

25. The talent of my friends. I am awed by the number of extremely talented friends I have and in so many different ways. They all make the world more beautiful with their work, be it writing, drawing, painting, tattooing, teaching, cooking, surviving, acting, dancing, running, photographing, knitting, raising kidlets, singing, selling, story-telling, physics, on and on. So many talented friends...

26. Sparkle.

27. A high pain threshold - both physical and emotional.

28. People who love my children and think they're great.

29. People who think I'm great (or at least pretend to when I'm around).

30. This blog in which I spill my brain fumes every day and people actually read it. And like it.

31. Late night conversation, stifling giggles so as not to wake the kids.

32. Honesty. My own and that of others.

33. My lovely red silk hat. And my gray wool cloche. And my rainbow crochet beanie. Well, just hats. Fabulous hats.

34. People who buy fabulous clothes and shoes and then discard them in abundance at Goodwill. Especially if they are exactly my size.

35. Sidewalks.

36. Walks to school.

37. This amazing city where we were blessed enough to have finally landed 5 and half years ago.

38. People who disagree with me.

39. Little girls in loud clothing.

40. Rare quiet moments.

41. Really good socks.

42. Teachers 

43. Spontaneous and genuine displays of affection.

44. Hummingbirds in my front porch geraniums.

45. Online recipes and knitting patterns.

46. Excellent public library.

47. Good people who raise nice kids to be more good people.

48. The kindness of strangers.

49. My little crooked house in a great neighborhood.

50. The wisdom of other people that they are willing to share.

51. Finding just the right word to describe something.

52. Hand sanitizer.

53. Clean drinking water.

54. Little love notes written with misspelled words and backwards letters.

55. Delightful absurdities that make me laugh to myself.

56. The moment between breaths when you try to decide if you are done laughing.

57. Inside jokes that have run their course but are still funny.

58. Knitting. Definitely knitting. The quiet contemplation and the magic of tying knots in yarn with sticks to create beautiful things.

59. Dirty socks, trains and tracks, tiaras, books, crayons paper, footprints, hand prints and other evidence that my home is alive and active.

60. Living in a time and place where I am free to be who I want, believe what I want and do what I want.

61. Having the ability and means to help people who need it.

62. Books. Good books.

63. Trees of all descriptions. 

64. Craigslist.com

65. Recycling and compost bins.

66. Living within walking distance of an office supply store.

67. Little tiny snores and monkeys holding hands in their sleep.

68. The women in my life who show me strength and femininity are not mutually exclusive.

69. When the Chief Lou saves up something to tell me at the end of the day because he knows it will make me laugh.

70. People who appreciate gifts and accept compliments.

71. Good, fresh produce.

72. Imagination and a rich interior life.

73. Surprise notes and comments and emails that say just the thing I needed to hear today.

74. Exuberance.

75. Days set aside for cooking and sharing and eating with family and friends. We should have more thanksgivings.