fire, smoke and memory

(Plus some long-lost early spring snaps.)

Last night a dry lightening storm split the sky open and set-off a fireworks show.  I stood outside and watched in the wind until it got too close, then I sat inside with the lights off.  Tonight there is a fire burning I can see from my bedroom window.  I had seen the very bolt that started this fire, a red ball at the end of it.  I don't miss fighting fires; it is hot, grueling work.  But oh my, I do love the smell of a healthy fire.  I opened the windows to let in a hint of that smokey air.  The kids stood on my windowsill in their pajamas, pigtails all askew, looking for the fire, following my description with their eyes: See your playhouse?  And the roof of your playhouse?  Look just past the roof of your playhouse to that blue mountain in the distance.  See the white smoke?  That's the fire.  And oh, look!  See that orange light?  That's a tree torching!     

Hazel, her glass-blue eyes so wide she is practically shaking: "I see it, I see da fire!  Mama, dere's a big, huge, fire!!  We could ROAST MARSHMALLOWS!"   

I watched them, the backs of their heads, their day-old pigtails, as they clambered for a spot in the windowsill.  I often (too often) fret that my kids are being denied the childhood I had: best-friends within spitting distance, a swimming pool down the road and a neighborhood of kids that roamed as a pack.  People often wonder what their kids will remember.  I don't expect my kids to remember much.  I don't remember much from that age.  But I do sit back and watch this life, our world, inform their very souls.  I watch as their neurons learn to fire for mountain goats, balsamroot, and the orange slash on the throat of a cutthroat trout.  I don't worry about what they'll remember; my concern is what they will come to embody.  I want them to embody kindness, love, connection, wildness, stewardship. 

   

Juniper: "Oh, no!  But who will save the animals?"  

Me: "It's a small fire.  The animals will know to run."

Juniper, yelling through the window: "Run animals, RUN!"     

So even though the air is crisp and I *just* covered my corn and beans, potatoes and tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins in expectation of frost...tonight we smell of hot, smokey summer. 

:: 

:: And on that note, before summer starts for real, I have some early spring snaps that are too good to miss.  So if you remember waaaaaay back to Easter, we had a visitor arrive that night.  Nana graced us with her presence for a whole week.  My kids may not remember it, but their neurons know to fire for baking cookies, pretending and reading with their Nana.  It all counts, memories or not.     

:: Mudcake-making started early this year. 

:: We semi-spontaneously hosted a small, May Day afterschool tea party.  (Whatever happened to May Day anyway?  I remember as a little, little, kid leaving a bouquet of flowers on a neighbor's doorstep, ringing the bell and running.  But then the memories just fizzle out.  How about you?  What did you do for May Day and what do you do now?  Anything?  Mom?  We did that, didn't we?)

:: In keeping with her Magic Schoolbus obsession, Juniper turned herself into a honeybee, entirely of her own doing.  In case you can't tell, the paintbrushes taped to her head are the antennae, the paint tray taped to her belly is the nectar stomach, the coasters taped to her sides are the pollen pouches, and her wings, obviously, taped to her back (I did help get those on).

:: Juniper teaching Hazel to play Candyland.  Hazel, my sweet-tooth, this is what her dreams are made of.

:: Early, windy, spring walk with friends.

:: If the house is quiet, she's either eating toothpaste or...

:: 'night y'all.

P.S.  YES, I herniated a disc in my neck.  It is fine, almost normal, thank you.  And YES, we were rear-ended by a careless driver last week.  The back end of my car needs some body work, but we are all perfectly fine (except for missing most of Kid's Fishing Day).  It didn't do my neck any favors and Hazel tells everyone that we were in a car accident, but otherwise everything is a-okay.  Thank you.