Closing Night Interview with a Performance Artist

It is the closing night of the performance art piece that has been showing in my front yard the last few weeks. It's a poignant piece called Pots of Dead Things: An Exploration of the Existential Conflict of Squirrels vs. Zucchini and Why Dahlias Do Not Make Good Toys. I caught up with some of the players just as they were wrapping up.

Me: So, last performance, huh? How are you feeling about that?
Zucchini Plant: Well, there's always a little sadness when things change, but I think we had a brilliant showing and accomplished some of the things we set out to do.
Me: Can you articulate some of those things for our readers?
ZP: There were a lot of people who, when we first started this project in June, were doubtful of the outcome. I think we proved that you can, indeed, grow zucchini in pots. We also got to work with some great kids this year who really poured their hearts into watching this piece unfold. From the very beginning when we were just a seed of an idea, they were there to nurture us along, to help us see this thing through. I like to think we helped them learn some things along the way.
Me: What sort of things?
ZP: Patience, primarily. And, you know, that exhilaration of watching something spring to life and transform. [chuckles quietly] Also that they don't like to eat zucchini very much.
Me: Was this problematic for the performance?
ZP: Nah, it's all good. We fed some hungry squirrels. Cycle of life, man, cycle of life. There are so many things that can get you down in today's world. It's great to have been a part of something that encourages discovery. It's good to know that plants just keep growing, the seasons keep turning. Ahem. [clears throat and takes a moment]
Me: Any words of advice to your successors?
ZP: Sure. They're young and pretty now, but they have a hard winter ahead of them. They're working with some great people, though, and I hear they're hardy, so they should be OK.

Dahlia's neck was broken and was unavailable for comment. Both she and Zucchini Plant will be retiring to Compost Bin later today. We're excited to announce that a brand new performance Mum's The Word will be debuting this fall, weather permitting.

1000 Miles: Day One

4802 steps. This is just shy of half the number of steps that my iPod set as my daily goal. Whoa. I will have to do some math to figure out the approximate distance. Not now. My plan for launching this grand experiment has coincided with a sudden case of sinusitis for me and my monkeys, so we are having some slow days.

Nonetheless, here are some things I've noticed already:

1. I have become conscious of the steps I am not taking. Every time I sit down at the computer or on the couch, my brain suddenly pokes me and says "No steps here!" and I feel like I should get up and walk somewhere.
2. My pedometer doesn't always count the "steps" I take when I'm crawling.
3. I crawl around a lot more than I ever realized.
4. It may take me years at this rate to walk a thousand miles.

It was just such a summer day, though! We needed to get out of the house. Starting with "baby steps" since no one was feeling particularly terrific, we did some chalk drawing in front of the house. I really wish my pedometer counted crawling steps because this involved a lot of crawling.

Do you recognize the painting?

We were emboldened by our artistic efforts, so after cleaning up hands and knees and filling bellies with lunch, we decided we all felt well enough to go to the park a few blocks from our house.

 These were my favorite steps of the day. Brilliant, surreal color, losing track of everything except the laughter of monkeys, the direction of the breeze, and keeping the kites in the sky.

 Then we needed a lot of underdogs.

Then a nap.

Until next time... keep stepping!

1000 Miles

We've all heard the adage "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Heard it ad nauseum, probably. I was racing my monkeys around the block today and goofing with the pedometer on my iPod when I thought of that proverb. How many steps in a thousand miles? When we take the proverbial single step, do we know what's at the end of the thousand miles? Do we sometimes lose track of all of the steps in between and end up someplace else?

I'm going to attempt to answer some of these questions. I will be wearing my pedometer for the next 1000 miles of my life and journaling where all of those steps take me along the way as well as discovering where I wind up at the end of them all. Check back here for updates. Feel free to take your own journey and add your insights, too.

Oh, and in celebration of this new journey, click here for our theme song. Something else we've all heard ad nauseum, but catchy nonetheless.

Discovery Park

The winter had been mild, but brutal for reasons other than the weather. Seemingly for months on end, stuck indoors with first one illness and then another, circling our family like greedy, mucus-laden vultures. It shook me to the center. Made me question my beliefs about myself, my health, my children's health, my parenting prowess. I declared "Enough!" and bundled little bodies, sore with remnants of our latest bout. I stuffed my pockets with tissues, healthy snacks, a camera and a map and heaved us out the door in search of a cure.


The city is hemmed by natural vastness on both sides. The Cascades to the East, the Sound and Olympics to the West. Abundant forests, lakes, foothills, volcanoes surround us. Hulking, shimmering there, patiently allowing our farce of human progress until they decide to reclaim the land. It is this constant visage of the absolute enormity of nature while still having access to good schools, flushing toilets, cultural events and decent shopping that I love about my most recent home.


The kids were antsy as we wound a new direction through a residential area. They'd never been this way before, had I? How did I know where we were going? Was I sure we weren't lost? 
"Trust me, please, to be the Mama."
Their questions were literal, but the low boil of irritation they ignited spoke to my own set of questions on an entirely different level. How did they grasp that so naturally? Or is it just my inner critic speaking?
"No, honey, I've never been this way before."

The shadow of doubt infected our space, in spite of my reassurances. The oddly flat, well-manicured mid-century subdivision through which we were driving didn't seem like the wildness I was seeking. Slowing for speed bumps and watching for my cue, I think I held my breath a bit. Slowly, slowly, then - aha. There it was, my talisman: the small, slightly dated-looking, rainbow striped sign of a city park. With a triumphant flip of  the blinker and a tap on the brakes, I felt more vindicated than I should have. I was right. I did know the way. With that slight course adjustment, we left the landscape of tidy yards and ramblers for our personal frontier.


Over lunch we spotted a white rabbit, startling against the green underbrush. It stopped and watched us watching it before cocking its head and leaping off into the deeper forest. It seemed as good a sign as any that it was time to begin our descent to the beach.


The path was worn and well-marked and the kids enjoyed the freedom to dance or run or meander at their own paces. Stopping to inspect: witch's butter here, moss formations there, rocks, bugs, the first brave flower buds of late winter.


Across the meadow to the bluffs - the first lookout point to the Sound. I think it was then that they finally started to believe me that we were going the right way. Impatience, urgency - "There it is! I can see the beach! Let's go straight!" The futility of explaining that what felt like walking away was really the best way to go.

I watched their little legs and feet making their way down the steep and knobbly forest trail. Each step so much effort, distances so much further for them than for me. These two little forest creatures, gamely heading the direction I pointed them. Setting aside their doubts and plunging deeper into the evergreen glow of sunlight filtered through clouds filtered through cedars.


We rounded a bend as the cedars gave way to deciduous trees not yet in leaf. We three stopped to catch our breath and mine caught me. Unfolding before us, the wind and salt bleached trees, with bare limbs held high. Clothed in white, a crowd of supplicants, arms lifted in praise, frozen there in their dance down the hill to be baptized by sun and sand and sea. We took up their dance for them; eagerly, trippingly, breathlessly down the rest of the trail. At once blinded and inspired by the occasional flashing glimpse through the limbs as the ripples on the Sound grasped a little sunlight and tossed its sparkle up to us. In good faith we clamored through the last tangle of vines that completely obscured our goal until bursting, tumbling, gasping like birth onto the sand. 


Off they ran to dig, to hunt, to discover, to revel. The brilliance of the sudden afternoon sun was matched only by the shining, dancing, aching pleasure in my children's chilly, wind-kissed faces.
"Thank you, Mama! We made it!"