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.    

flying

People always say--in the same sing-songy voice as, Sleep when the baby sleeps!--that in order to take care of your children, you have to first take care of yourself.  I'm calling bullshit on that.  For me, taking care of myself involves: 1) Eating well, 2) exercise, 3) sleep, 4) keeping family relationships afloat and, 5) pursuing my own creativity.

Because my husband and I cook--almost always from scratch--three square meals a day for the kids, I either directly or indirectly (if I'm eating off my kids' plates) eat well.  Check.  Keeping family relationships afloat falls on all of us and sometimes we're sailing the high seas and sometimes we're treading water, but by golly we're not drowning.  Check.  Every night after the kids are tucked-in and well on their way to dreaming about fighting fires and rescuing baby jaguars and riding friesian horses on the beach, I slip upstairs to my project room where I either write, process photos, sew or knit.  Creative pursuits, check.

But.  Sleep...when?  Exercise...huh?  If I sleep I have to give up the creative pursuits and that's not an option.  My nearest relatives are at least one state away, so no one to take my kids out to lunch while I kick up my feet and knit for an hour.  Nighttime is my only time.

And exercise, oh, that slippery fish.  Exercise was not a problem back in those delirious, golden days of having a single child.  Daily walks.  Remember those?  Remember how easy that was?  Or mom-and-baby exercise classes where the moms sweat and the babies crawl around whacking each other with toys.  Those were the days, I'm telling you.  They shine like stars in the murky depths of my memory.              

So instead of patting myself on the back, because hey, at least I'm taking care of my children--I am in the dumps.  Clearly I cannot take care of myself which means I'm not taking care of my children which means I'm failing on all accounts.  Shit.
::
All those thoughts had been floating around in my head for days when, on my man's last full day with us for a while, we decided to throw in the towel on Hazel's nap (taking the risk that she may not sleep while Juniper jabbers on and repeatedly bumps her boots)--and go skiing.

Oh!  I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence.  Hovering there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung 

My eager craft through footless halls of air.  

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew--

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.     

                      ~Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee, killed December 11, 1941

:: We skied all afternoon until the sun dipped behind the low, western mountains.  Both kids napped.  We felt more rejuvenated than we had in months.  The trail is a half-mile from our house.  It was groomed last week, I think.  We'd never been on it.  Loops of trails wander for miles over the mud flats and frozen lake.  I am pumped.  I'm thinking of picking up some skate-skis.  My body feels good.  My back hurts a little less.  

I stopped at the warming hut, just to take a peek for future reference.  As far as I know, the trails and hut exist all thanks to local volunteers and grant money.  It's awesome.  

It has a little gas stove, some gorgeous hand-hewn pine chairs and benches, and a table with a random assortment of business cards and local information.  In the frame was the poem I quoted above.  Obviously it's about flying, but on that day, I was.  

spin-drifting to god

Today was magical.  It was the kind of day where you roll out of bed and straight-away step into the glass slippers.  This was our third day in a row of fifty degrees and sunshine.  The snow has melted everywhere but northern shadows and mountain peaks.

(Juniper on the trampoline: "I like the way my hair bounces on my head.")

There was nothing particularly extraordinary about today--Juniper awoke early with a runny nose and Hazel was clingy (a sure sign that she wasn't feeling up to par), but still.  I was glowing.  The tiniest gifts--gifts of the world--lit my day and my soul.

(I really love that my zone 3 garden can still grow vegetables in November, with no other help than an old sleeping bag on the coldest nights.)

My husband had the day off from work.  First thing, after a quick breakfast of granola and yogurt, we clipped the chickens' wings, let them loose in the yard and it felt so homey just to have them pecking about our feet, catching the last hoppers of the season and finally exploring this space they'd been eyeing for so long.  Later on, I opened the nest box to discover our first sage-green egg (we've been getting two brown eggs a day since the beginning of the month).  Juniper!  Juniper!  Hazel!  Girls!  Come look!  You won't believe it!  There's a big surprise in the nest box!  

(This is Banana ^.  The runt who is now our largest chicken.)  

I felt like this plethora of mid-autumn warmth was more than my body could bear and I was overflowing with exuberant sunshine.  A green egg!  Every tiny thing felt like a miracle and further proof that this was the best day ever.

(What I awoke to this morning ^, after sleeping-in for a few minutes: Commando-girl.)

My man worked on a play structure he's been building for the girls; I puttered around the garden tucking-in plants and making up beds for the winter.  In all reality, it was just a lovely, perfectly ordinary day.

(The slide is fast; Hazel launches out the bottom.)

Juniper wanted to "nap" (she doesn't any more) in the playhouse with a sleeping bag and I couldn't bring myself to go inside for naptime--not even for twenty minutes to get Hazel down.  So papa stayed with Juniper while I tucked Hazel into the old single-seater B.O.B stroller and the whole time I was saying, "Wow.  This brings back memories.  Juniper, did you know that when you were younger I tucked you into this stroller every afternoon and walked while you napped?  You loved it.  So did I."  

 I walked.  Hazel slept.  Hawthorn berries glowed red in the low-slung afternoon sun.  I walked along a residential road that runs through the middle of a huge, open field and I saw the tiniest spider dangling mid-air, as though its web-line ran all the way up to god.  I was so astonished I plucked it out of the air, just to be sure.  I'd heard about that, of course.  But I'd never actually seen it.  When I got home and told my husband about the spider he said, Oh yeah.  Kiting.  So today I saw a tiny spider kiting, spin-drifting, eye-level in the middle of a field.  Or maybe it was me: floating, drifting, spinning, high on this ordinary life.  

            

shriveled

There's some study going around facebook about how spending too much time on facebook, peering into other peoples lives, can bring you down.  Because, of course, people only post the good stuff.  Their lives are spit-shined and sparkling.  Their children never poop on the floor, the dog never eats a dirty diaper, their spouse is never gone, they never lose their temper in front of their children, their car always starts and they're never late for anything.

My husband and I talked about that and I said, I've only had time for snapshots on the blog this summer--all full of canoeing and camping and everyone having a grand 'ol time.  I should do a blog post on the shit-for-crap 36 hours I experienced last week.  Because, you know, I'd hate for any reader of mine to think our lives are golden, parenting isn't the hardest job I've ever had, or that I'm not often struck with the desire to move closer to someone who will watch my kids while I sit down and *do nothing* for an hour or two.  He got all enthusiastic and said, Yeah!  And you could post all the bad pictures!  (Way to be supportive honey!)

I would do that except Hazel just picked up some little bug and she's sniveling and having a hard time sleeping.  I can hear her down there snotting around and I'm expecting she'll wake up at any moment.  Also, I'm exhausted.  My man's been gone for almost two weeks.  It was all I could do tonight to drag my ass up here.  On top of that, I'm tired.  As in, Tired.  As in, I haven't had a day off in 4 years TIRED.

It used to be a fleeting thought, the little mini-vacation I'd give myself once Hazel is fully weaned and both kids are no longer physically attached to me.  What would I do?  Go backpacking?  Lately, that fleeting thought has transformed into a biting obsession.  Backpacking?  Visit a big city (because my husband hates them and I'd be alone)?  Maybe a quick trip to a foreign city?  How long do I get?  I do get something, right?

At the end of my shit-for-crap 36 hours I sat down to eat some sad, leftover meal and looked up to see my own likeness staring me in the face.  I had to laugh.

And there's my cue, oh poor Hazel.  She takes colds so hard.

tell me

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

If my life were a puzzle and, in the past, that puzzle has largely been put together, right now I'm feeling like all those little pieces have been lifted by a gusty wind and scattered across creation.  Some were left behind, years ago, in far away places.  But mostly, they've been tossed and flung right here around me.  Most are still within sight.  Some have blown over the fence and into the back forty, some into the neighbor's yard, some are lying in puddles all rain-soaked and swollen, some have been blown into the woods and as we speak are being carried away by curious squirrels and hoarding pack-rats.  Some are gone forever.

Which is all to say that I've been feeling a bit disorganized.  Not in a what's-for-dinner, or have-I-paid-the-bills sort of way; but in a larger, life-trajectory sort of way.  Where are we going?  Where have we been?  What do we want?  What do we need to let go of? How do we want to move in, and affect, this wonderful world?  What kind of movement do we want to own and model for our girls?  Are we there?  Are we getting there?  Are we even on the right road?  As Mary Oliver famously wrote, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"  Tell me.  

In the last few weeks a conversation has been opened in our house, but it comes in fits and starts and is largely overshadowed by NOW: What's for dinner?  In which bed to plant the parsnips?  Damn, she's funny.  We should write that down.  Was that Hazel?  Hey honey, I put us both in for moose tags this year.  You know.

I have (almost) always been a journaler.  As a kid I had a little pink diary with a lock.  It was a Christmas gift and I wrote in crayon.  Often, my brother picked the lock.  The first several pages are filled, the rest are blank.  But in 1993 when I re-read The Diary of Ann Frank (or perhaps read it for the first time) I became a bonafide journaler.  When Juniper was 3 months old I started this blog and a year later I quit journaling (almost) altogether, only maintaining the act of putting pen to paper very sporadically.  And now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, I could probably chart my lost puzzle pieces back to when I stopped journaling.  How do you know what you want if you don't write it down?  How do you find your honesty?  How do you track your changes?      

So that is my wish, or my goal, for Mother's Day this year: putting pen back to paper.  Thoughts into words.  Dreams into actions.  To keep the conversation rolling.

And now.  Snippets from the past week or so...
:: A laisez-fair afternoon at the river.  Fishing, hooking some, catching none, mostly playing.

    

^Hazel sporting her mama-made Easter skirt.^

:: Juniper's balance bike is this whole new thing now that she has a basket and a bell.  Truly, it made all the difference.  She glides and strides and coasts and is talking about pedals.  

:: Hazel's "orsie" obsession continues.  She is quite bull-headed.  If you correct her and say no, it's a giraffe (or a zebra, or a pig, or...) she just looks at you, cocks her head and says, Orsie!!

^Also, Hazel Iris nearly always has one bare foot.^

:: I must have been talking about how mama is married to daddy because the conversation proceeded like this: 

Juniper: I want to marry Daddy.  

Me: You can't marry your dad.  But you can marry a friend.  Like Charlie or Harrison or River or Quinn or Victoria.  

Juniper: I want to marry Mama!!  

Me: You can't marry me, I'm you're mama!  

Juniper: I want to marry Hazel.  

Me:  Well...that sounds nice.  

Juniper: Hazey, let's get married.

:: We took care of a friend's dog for a while.  He is 11 and reminded me so much of Osa.  The way he walked, that old dog shuffle.  The little snorts and groans of satisfaction when you scratched his ears.  The way he prowled the kitchen floor in search of fall-out.  The way he pretended to be deafer than he is.      

Juniper immediately took it upon herself to be his primary care-giver.  She gave him his medicine every morning, poured his food and checked his water bowl.  She also utterly harassed him.  

And smothered him with a non-stop barrage of questions.  Hey Pico, hey buddy, we're going to take care of you.  Are you doing okay?  Hey Pico, do you want a snack?  Hey Pico, hey buddy, you need to lay down right here.  Here's your bed.  There.  Now let me get a blanket.  There you go.  There you go Pico boy.  Pico, you need tucked-in.  Then she got out the ukelele and tried to serenade him to sleep.  

Every morning and every post-nap afternoon, Hazel walked into the living room all wide-eyed and eyebrows-raised, pointing and exclaiming, Dog!  Dog!  Dog!  Dog!  As though she hadn't seen a dog in months.  Every. Single. Time.  

:: Lately, when I hear thumping coming from J's room during naptime, this is what I find.  The animal doctor.  Sometimes she has elaborate examination tables set up, complete with an OR spotlight.  The other day, we had a special surgery for her polar bear, giving him stitches or, what Juniper adoringly calls, twitches.  

:: Hazel's been doing this for months but it's still endearing: signing "All done."   

Now we just need to get a photo of her wide-eyed, innocent, pleading look combined with an eyebrow-arched question mark saying, "Nur?" and making the fist-squeeze sign for milk.  She even does it at night: instead of crying, she juts one little fist in the air like an SOS for mama's milk.  

:: A (less than) 24 hour visit from family we'll soon see on another big adventure.  

 ^Cousin Owen showing off his summersaulting skills.^

Sam and Owen pushing Hazel in the swing.  She likes to go as high as you can push and she doesn't like to stop.  

Juniper was getting persnickety about sharing her little blue tent with cousin Sam.  Specifically, she cried and said he couldn't go in.  Two days later at dinner table grace, she says, "I'm thankful for my blue skirt and my princess band-aids and my cousins."  And a little later, "Maybe next time Sammy can come in my blue tent!  And Owen and Hazel and Pico.  And we'll all be together!"    

She's always been a snuggler, but Hazel utterly melts on my husband's brother's shoulder.  There's just something about him.