Lovin Me Some More Winter

I offered my neck to Martin this morning so he could touch my gland, which is, I am not kidding you, swollen to the size of a golf ball. I love this time of year. Really. I love bundling the children in ten layers of wool to pick someone up from school. I love looking outside and watching the snow blow in great icy clouds from the neighbor's roof. I love that we crawl from one cold to another. My sister used to say--I think it was in Wheaton, IL, where we had come straight from the shifting sunlight and warm floors of Kenya to the wind tunnels of our college where our snot froze as soon as we stepped from the teeming heat of the dorm building--"Just relax. It's colder if you tense up your muscles. You have to EMBRACE winter." So I'd try to unknot my shoulders, unlock my kneecaps, slacken my chattering jaw. And it was true, what she said, but I lack the discipline to relax so consistently.

Sarcasm does not become me, or so my mother would tell me if she were here instead of in WA cooking big pots of chili in my father's abscense.

This is how my mother cheers herself when my father is on a trip: she cooks, watches programs my father does not particularly care for, sleeps in (this does not mean SLEEPING IN the way a teenager might, but the way my mother sleeps in, until 7:30 or so), and shops the thrift stores.

When my mother travels, my father consoles himself by going to the grocery store and buying a head of iceburg lettuce. My mother looks down her nose at the stuff, perferring something with integrity, but my father secretely pines after his own mama's iceburg salads. Perhaps my parents hit mid-life crisis at some point, but it was not particularly dramatic: no motorcycles, swift red cars or religious conversion. Only waterlogged vegetables and new chili recipes. It's the way I like it.

Drama is good on TV series but not in families. And not in weather! This chapter of winter needs to come to a satisfactory conclusion. We've got February and April to go until the robin appears in our garden path. I'm not impatient exactly, just ready. That's it, I'm just graciously ready for some warmth. And so is my poor sore throat.

Little Bea

Courtesy of my dearie Sally M., here's Bea in a hat.

Wish I could write more but
a. I am too hungry,
and
b. I am being climbed by two little girls.

Elspeth's Prayers

Elspeth handed me a stack of white paper, scrawled in bright colors: hearts, butterflies, riotous dresses. "This is for the children in Katie," she said, "Because they died." (Elspeth calls Haiti, Katie).

After breakfast, I held the girls and we danced together. I've danced with the girls since they were babies, to calm them, put them to sleep, wake them up, burn off energy, and just for the mighty comfort and joy of holding and moving to music, warmed by the heat of their little bodies. I've danced since I was tiny. I remember, as a toddler, sitting on our cool concrete floor in Bangladesh, shaping my fingers into the intricate positions of the Indian dancers on our little black and white TV. Dancing has always been a private way for me to process change, embrace mystery, to dwell in sadness and joy. Seeking to pray, words often feel so silly and incomplete, a flat tinny sound where I desire a ringing bell. As I danced with the girls this morning I was finally able to step into the confusing tragedy of Haiti, be in it for a few moments, and free from words, pray with the movement of my own body and through my love for my own daughters.

Later, before quiet time, Elspeth wanted to talk about the earthquake again, but instead I asked her if she wanted to pray for the people in Haiti. "Save the children," she prayed, and "Thank you for making it safe in Katie," and "For the love which from our birth," she concluded.

"For the love which from our birth" is a line from our family hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth written by Folliot Pierpoint in 1864. We've been singing it with the girls since they were little. The full first verse is: "For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies; For the love which from our birth, over and around us lies. Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise."

Amen, child. Despite of, and because of, and because I do not know what else to say to God when I am angry, overwhelmed, and confused and still filled with a love for my own which makes me ache for those who have lost everything. Still, Amen.

Christmas Past

My good father-in-law sent pictures. . .

So, late in the game, here are a few, almost all from Texas.

I had a post planned in my head--two days ago--but I am currently at BLAH stage. You know what I mean. The three girls are finally in bed, two so tired that they cried. Funny children. I feel as though I have earned my hour or two of mindless entertainment before sleep tonight.

So enjoy the pictures. Don't I have gorgeous extended family?

Merry and her cousin Isabella.


My beautiful new nephew, Jacob.

Elspea and her cousin Lilia.

Elspeth in her element, or one of them.

Merry and Martin embarked on a day of art in downtown Houston--they sketched, created poems about a Mark Rothko painting in the Mark Rothko chapel, and Martin conducted an interview with Merry. Merry's earlier art has been compared to a Twombly, and here she is outside the exhibit.

Two birthday cakes in one day: Merry wanted cheesecake, and Elspeth got the lemon-glazed vanilla gumdrop. Aren't they rather pretty?


Out of the warm TX weather, back to snow! Snow! Snow!

Bodums Up--Another School Day Tomorrow!

Dear me, my fingers are so cold. I usually have a space heater up in this room but my sister's family gratefully moved it down to the guestroom so they wouldn't have to wear ski bibs to bed. They are gone. I could retrieve it. I am too lazy. This old house boasts a fireplace in every bedroom--beautiful old fireplaces that must have warmed the toes and fingers of the occupants so long ago. Modern convenience triumphed and now we have one vent--in the hallway--that blows warm air toward the attic door. We bundle ourselves in robes and slippers and pray that the warm air finds us in our bedrooms.

Elspeth, darling girl, snuck in the room earlier, flung herself upside-down under blankets on my bed, and fell asleep. Sleeping children. Something eternally wonderful covers them, bathes their faces in summer sunlight. I want to put my head down on her chest and feel her breaths like the rolling of the sea. . . .

But enough of that somewhat sappy mother moment. Tomorrow it's back to school for Martin--Merry and Elspeth start their second weeks back. I must face my to-do list: Christmas bills, letters and my grant report to write. School lunches to pack, early mornings and homework evenings. It's been a splendid break, utterly splendid I tell you! We capped it off with a leisurely day spent with good friends who like to eat and laugh. This holiday has been full of such deeply good moments: eating, laughing, drinking hot tea and listening to the coffeepot burbling away. My mother declares a personal vendetta when she glowers at my Bodum Frenchpress (too fragile, too fiddly, too cool too fast). To please her I brought in Mr. Coffee. He spent a couple weeks at our house as a welcome guest--wreathed my mother's face in pleasure, and which daughter would not pay 15.99 for that? He left with the company and my intimate friend Bodum is back again, waiting for me to start another school day tomorrow.

Bodums up, mes amis!

Taking a Swim

Honestly! More snow!

I was on the phone this morning chatting away as my soul became more and more engaged with the tableau out my back porch window--fluffy black birds huddling on branches of what I call my "Bird Tree." Their head feathers engulfed their little faces like wreaths. The Bird Tree is incredibly messy: tall, gangly, hung with grapevines, not unlike a new, greasy-haired adolescent wearing too much jewelry. But the birds love the mess and cling to the branches and stray vines through the winter, which means I love the tree too. My Bird Tree and I are old friends, especially in the midst of the cold and lasting insideness. Here I am, happy enough but inside, with a baby on antibiotics, eating leftover Christmas chocolate and watching the snow blow across our porch roof.

I have boiled yet another pot of water in my jolly tea kettle. Here are my plans for the afternoon: to dig a deep hole in my living room, fill it with tea, pull on my bathing suit, and take a nice long dip in Darjeeling. Anyone care to join me?

After

Outside my window the neighbor's strings of white lights twinkle in the snow that has whisked about for days now. Usually, in wintertime, this time of day fills me with a sense of gathering gloom. The lamps I click on in defiance of sadness seem swallowed by darkness that deepens and creeps into the hidden spaces between my mind and joints. Tonight we said BOO to the gloom and set our little table with a bright orange checked cloth, a plate of jam tarts, and cobalt blue tea cups. We drank to being a simple family again, quieted for a second to listen to the happy, calming hum of the heater. . .and NOTHING ELSE. It's quite a change from having twelve people, half of them children, in our house for the past ten days. Before that we went awassailing to Texas--before that, endless parties and visits and a flurry of good intentions. The yells of victory over games, the child admitting defeat to another with tears, giddy laughter, the rustling of wrapping paper, snowy scarves, books and clinking of good eating with so many people I love so furiously.

Ah.

Silence.

Happy New Year.