Notes from Wazoo Farm

2012-01-28T22:16:00.001-05:00

Enjoy a little Cinderellaesque love story I wrote for the paper by clicking HERE.

delivery

2012-01-27T14:58:00.003-05:00

I used to order organic flour, raisins, and peanut butter--things like that--from a wholesaler. I've fallen off that wagon now but I still receive e-mails alerting me to deliveries. Nancy used to send out the news but since she fell sick, a guy named Joshua has taken over.

joshua
delivery

This is what I see in my inbox every two weeks or so, and though I never click on the e-mail I'm rather fond of the subject line, especially since it's from Joshua. It makes me think of a Biblical prophet announcing my salvation.

I have some things Joshua could deliver me out of, don't you? I'd like to give him a catalogued list sometime. But then I wonder, as Merry has in the past about perfection, if that is something I really desire. "I mean, you wouldn't have anything to work on anymore," Merry has told me. She's right. If you were practically perfect in every way, what would you possibly find to overcome anymore?

There are so many small things that plague me, but the journey to overcoming them (which is a journey without an end, as far as I can tell), is worthwhile. For instance, even though I've been a writer for many years now, starting a new writing project is still daunting for me. The blinking cursor, the blank page. I feel as if I have to take a deep breath and jump that hurdle every time. And often my shins are all skinned by the end and I have to go back to the beginning and start over again.

Maybe, too, I secretly love my vices just a little bit. Sometimes it feels really good to lose my cool and shout, though afterward I feel as if I've lost something. Again--more than just my temper.

Joshua,today deliver me from the stress of the week into a long, cool happy hour.

Ritual

2012-01-24T14:15:00.006-05:00

Yesterday on the phone my mother described her and my father's new Wednesday routine. She calls it "Bastard Sabbath." Now those of you who know my mother will know that she never uses slang (unless she's attempting an idiom--attempting and failing) and that she always utilizes words in their original, simple meaning. I say this to let you all know that "Bastard Sabbath," though it sounds like the name of a rock band from the 1970's, means that she and my father are approximating, or interpreting, their own sort of sabbath day. They've been reading a book by a Jewish rabbi about the concept of taking Sabbath days and decided to create their own sacred day in the middle of the week when they can discard their routines in the evening and replace them with simplicity, contemplation, and a book discussion.

"We'll fast during the day--not just from food, but from the media, and then at night we'll eat good soup and hearty bread and drink wine."

"You're going to be absolutely loopy," I said. "Nothing in your stomach all day and then wine."

"We're going to drink it slowly," she said, and began to laugh. "Like Shabbat--four glasses, but slowly."

"What?" I started to laugh, too. "Four glasses? It's going to be some kind of contemplative night all right!"

"Well, maybe we'll have to rethink that part," she said.

All drinking aside, my parent's attention to Ritual is something that Martin and I have tried to adopt over the years. Ritual is different than routine. Routines are ways of doing things you fall into without thinking too much about them; they become rote, and often even tyrannical things that eventually disgust you. But to nurture Ritual requires careful forethought, an attention to space and time, and a tender attitude of love.

Our days are full of small rituals that make each day extraordinary in some way (though they don't always happen as peacefully as we hope). Martin and I love tea time together, once in the morning and once in the evening, and that has become one of our most important rituals together: putting the kettle on, heating the teapot with a splash of boiling water, steeping the tea under the cozy, and sitting down together, taking a long, precious fifteen minutes (more if we're lucky) to discuss our day, our writing, our ideas and frustrations.

At night, we get the children to bed, put the house to bed, make lunches for the next day, set the table for breakfast, and finish the writing/grading work that we have inevitably still waiting for us. Then we always meet together, to play a game or watch a program on TV. Our ritual is always the same: one of us gets Sleepytime tea for the other, someone gets a snack. As we watch TV I scratch Martin's back, and he always gets up to get me another cup of tea. It's a simple ritual that I look forward to every day.

In Andre Dubus' short story, "A Father's Story," the narrator, whose marriage has dissolved, wonders about how that relationship might have been saved:

“I believe ritual would have healed us more quickly than the repetitious talks we had, perhaps even kept us healed. Marriages have lost that, and I wish I had known then what I know now, and we had performed certain acts together every day, no matter how we felt, and perhaps then we could have subordinated feeling to action, for surely that is the essence of love.”

Emotion fluctuates from hour to hour; our rituals are like pillars in our days, pulling us back together to focus on what's real and good.

F & I

2012-01-23T08:30:00.002-05:00

Top o the Monday to all of you good folk!

Today I must: write a letter to a man in Colorado about a guidebook he wrote about fifty years ago; interview the priest; buy more milk. And take a shower. I smell like maple syrup and I'm not sure how it happened. All last night I exuded the scent; while it seemed pleasant at first, it grew increasingly cloying, and now I can hardly wait to rid myself of it and go on with my day without thinking of pancakes every time I inhale.

It's deeply gray today, so gray in fact that I feel I could plunge my arm into the sky up to the elbow, grope around, and still not touch the hot orb of the sun. If I could I'd pull it out and bounce it across the county, sending sparks over us all and clearing our stuffy heads.

FIRE AND ICE

Merry held a late-birthday sleepover on Friday night. Two things of note happened: one, Martin, while mixing up some last minute enchiladas (Merry's choice) for about twenty people, leaned over to taste the sauce and realized he had put in two tablespoons of cayenne instead of chili powder; two, the sky decided to dump great quantities of ice upon us, so that everything looked like a set for the Nutcracker, charming until we almost killed four people on our front steps which looked as they had been dusted with a wee bit of snow but were coated underneath with an inch of ice. And the handrail was coated with ice as well, which translated to a lot of slipping and sliding and near calamity. Martin worked for about an hour to get to the rock salt I'd left in the Subaru. The car was also encased in an inch of ice which shattered like glass. Needless to say, our little guests got to stay for a while longer than planned, since nobody could get in their cars, let alone drive them along the roads. But the girls got some swift sledding in on our icy hill and we could hear the sleds swooping down even inside over the roar of the vacuum cleaner, where I was cleaning up the clods of cheese on the floor from the SECOND batch of enchiladas, sans cayenne.

Comfort at Any Price

2012-01-19T20:32:00.004-05:00

This is how my night will culminate: trail mix, (maybe a bowl of cereal), Sleepytime tea, a little Dame Judi Dench on the TV, and my favorite red robe. Apparently I've dressed in this robe almost every (cold) night for the last thirteen or so years, at least that's what Martin claims. He seems to be ambivalent toward it, but I LOVE it.

It does not become me in any way. I found my enormous Land's End robe--red as holly berries--at an outlet center in Maine (I think--I can't remember now). It was far too big for me, especially at that time, but I didn't care. It was incredibly soft, not sensuously so like bird's feathers or spring leaves, but like a huge slipper--for my body. It has enormous pockets that are continuously filled with tiny choking hazards swiped off the floor or earrings removed at night or wads of kleenexes.

There is nothing attractive about this robe--it's 100 % polyester, bulky and voluminous; it completely hides any figure I might boast and the tie about the middle makes a big, unflattering knot. And yet it has been just the thing for three pregnancies and daughters who loved to nurse constantly and for as long as possible. It's as good as a blanket as I pad around our old, chilly house in sheepskin slippers where morning temperatures upstairs in our room waver in the 50's and 60's. I love this huge, ugly, comfortable piece of red perfection.

What's an ugly comfort you love? Give thanks for it tonight, as I shall when I wrap Good Old Red around me once again.

2012-01-18T14:21:00.002-05:00

What's intimidating me today:
Baking Merry's cheesecake.

I have baked a cheesecake before, and goodness knows it's not too hard. But it's just a tad bit fiddly, and I don't 'do' fiddly. That's why I am not a good engineer. Measurements? Meaningless details!

Merry's belated birthday party is this weekend and she wants a Cheese Party: all her guests will sample cheeses and write down what they think of each one. If she pushes for this on her tenth birthday, what will she ask for in another ten? Caviar tasting party? Truffles from around the Continent?

My parents are eating cheese, too, but they may very well be locked this very moment in their tiny beach shack in Oregon listening to winds gust over sixty miles an hour and waves crash not far from their thin walls. But my mother, who sounded absolutely drunk on life yesterday when I spoke with her, and my father, who is more reserved generally but also sounded very happy, assured me that they had bought emergency matches and candles and would be quite snug with their Scrabble game, cheese, Dave's Killer Bread, and a bottle of the best wine I have ever, ever tasted: Angelico, a red so smooth that you feel like a baby again. One can't help being a little envious of the hurricane lovebirds in their empty nest. They've managed to feather it quite nicely.

Garden Plans

2012-01-17T22:10:00.004-05:00

Martin was very busy over the weekend with a major project. He toiled over it until two in the morning on Saturday evening and spent at least five or six hours bent over it in deep concentration on Sunday.

The final project is now taking up half our dining room table, along with our computers, unfinished puzzles and hot cups of Sleepytime tea.

You'll never guess. It's a to-scale, detailed, topographic rendering of our garden plans, in. . ..LEGOS. Yes. You heard me correctly. The paths, the pots, even the compost bins and our white cat (we don't own it; it just likes our garden)--all carefully built out of legos. My favorite part is the woman sitting at a table under an arbor draped with grapevine. She did not try to design the garden, on paper or with legos. Her one attempt at building a pot was met with veiled derision. So she isn't patient enough to find just the right blocks--so she doesn't have an engineering bone in her body and her pots look like something from out of space--so what? She's happy in the shade.

The woman is me, of course, and she looks so content out there in lone splendor with her book, plastic ponytail, and pot of tri-colored flowers.

In contrast, there are three men, and I think they must all be Martin--one is watering the garden with a huge hose, one is raking over green matter in the compost bin, and one is jauntily starting up the main path with a broom in his hand (due to a cornocopia of legos from different sets, the broom used to be a spear. A barbarian gentleman with a shield and impressive facial hair used to lounge breezily on a garden bench as well until he was plucked and discarded).

There's even a little wheelbarrow and a woman in a zen position in front of a planter. That can't be me.

My little charge, Ethan, poured over the Lego garden today, and his little hands kept fluttering toward it. "No, we don't want to touch it," I'd say. "Uncle Martin made that."

Ethan couldn't wrap his mind around it. "You mean he made it when he was a little boy?"

"No, he made it this weekend." Of course, the impressive crop of legos are from Martin's childhood, and I am glad to report that he is just as delighted by them now as he was when he was ten.

We tromped outside in the garden in our snow boots and made comparisons between the lego garden and the actual garden. We agreed that though the height adjustments of our sloping garden had been tricky to achieve in the Lego replica, the actual toil output in our actual garden come spring thaw will be harder. . .a whole lot harder. But what's more fun than shoveling tons of clay?

I wish I had downloaded the photos, but they're still on the camera. . .maybe tomorrow. I know you'll wait with bated breath.

She will just ramble on. . . .

2012-01-16T14:00:00.003-05:00

It's a very quiet MLK day here at Wazoo, though I just heard Merry cackle. Yes, cackle is the right word. It's supposed to be quiet time--Bea just looked outside and said, "It's very dark. It must be time to go to bed." The sky is a heavy white, a reflection of the snowy ground, though it's warming for evening rain.

Merry has saved her weekend homework until now and should be bent studiously over her tablet and book but Catherine is upstairs, too, and concentration is unlikely. Catherine is such a part of our family now that I no longer adjust my thought to fill four cups with water or ask four girls to scatter to tasks. I no longer "set an extra place" for Catherine but it is as if I have a fourth "sometimes" daughter.

It's been a short three or four months since Nancy died, but oddly it seems like much longer. In a way, death is like a boulder in a river; the river continues rushing on but there's new texture to it, an awareness of the way the rock has changed the course of the water. And, at least in this life, it's immovable. It will always be there and though everyone sees it, it is not often talked of. The first week I spent with Catherine after her mother passed away, I noticed that I did not speak of Nancy. At the end of the week, I felt convicted of the wrongness of this. Now I speak of Nancy freely with Catherine--when I see something that reminds me of her mother, I say so. When I remember something her mother loved, I tell Catherine. She must have many stories of her mother, and with these stories she will build a secret room of riches for herself. She'll need it--we all need secret rooms.

Catherine speaks easily and matter-of-factly about her mother, in the healthy, natural way that children have, or should have. It is only we adults, tied up so tightly by our own fears, who must adjust and choose to be natural instead of awkward.

I often think that we will someday realize that time is a flexible, boneless thing that wraps us now but will later be thrown from our shoulders like an old coat. It seems like such a rigid thing now--it pins us, storms at us, makes us dizzy and sad--but someday we'll find it to be a friendly, dynamic thing, with which we can play and relate and even laugh at. At least this is what I trust to be true, and it seems so much more obvious now that my friend has died, my children are growing quickly, and winter is here again, though the lilacs are already tightly budded. What if they were to bloom this afternoon and the air around them warmed until the grass went green and their corner of the garden was full of spring? Something like this happens in Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant." The North Wind and Frost punish the giant for being selfish, but one day the giant smells spring blowing in the window. When he looks outside, "He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children's heads." You can read the whole story, which begins with promise but ends by being unfortunately didactic, HERE.

(Please don't try to stick your children in icy trees to see if sudden thaw will occur.)

2012-01-13T14:43:00.004-05:00

Now it feels like winter--snow flurries in furious gusts, eddies at window panes. Bea is snoring softly next to me. We are both bundled, she and I, her head thrown back into her pillow, mouth open, cheeks pink. The windchimes are making a glorious racket and the ill-fitted storm windows in the sunroom bang in the wind. It's hard to ever really wake up on a day like today, when the the sun is only a reality for others. (I'd like to be in Australia by the sea this afternoon). Sally and Kevin came for lunch this afternoon and we all sat and stared at one another. Conversation was not bright and the best I could contribute was lines of "I'll Be There," by the Jackson 5, which was to be one of the most inane songs of all time. Cloying and saccharine, it sticks to the roof of my mouth, and Bea loves the Jackson 5 beyond all others.

"Jackson 5!" she demands on a daily basis, and for TV, "Tom and Jerry!" and for lunch, "Mac-e-bo-bos!" She and I share a rather bland diet there but it's punctuated by good books and frenzied rides on her tricycle, which she can maneuver around corners with astonishing speed and accuracy.

I'm thinking of all the household tasks I now have time for: finally tackling a closet I've been dreading for years (literally); paring things down, getting rid of say, half our stuff. I have the time but none of the will, because, let's face it, it's so very dull. If Jesus were to come back and I was cleaning out a closet, (I told Kevin and Sally today), I'd feel absolutely gipped.

How in the world do you spell that word? Gypped. That's just worse. Oh, I've no idea.

The sledding hill beckons children perhaps this afternoon but not me. It's a windchill of perhaps 1 degree and though I had high hopes of becoming Pioneer Mary and taking walks in every sort of weather, I am hiding from my better self today and baking cupcakes, one batch of which was a miserable failure (despite two sticks of butter, they taste like cornbread) and the other which succeeded so well I don't want anyone to eat them.

Jipped. That can't be right. I've been literate for a while now and my spelling just gets worse. Why?

Happy Friday, and may Happy Hour rise up to meet thee.

PS. Just ran the spell check and lo and behold, Gypped is correct. What a silly looking word that is. I wonder if it's embarrassed.

2012-01-12T09:17:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking about writing a lot. I've been writing only a little. I've been thinking about starting work on a novel; I haven't typed a single word. Last night I told Martin, "Why do it when there are plenty of people who have already done it well? And most of them I haven't even read yet!" I've also been meaning to start a writing group with students since I'm not teaching this semester. I ran into a student in the University hallway--straight from home, I was in my "plain clothes" of course--stained shirt, house sweater, comfy cordoroys, my hair hanging about my face--and Bea, though she was dressed, had left her coat at home and was in socks with no shoes (she did have a blister on her toe, by the way). I chatted with the student for a bit and then the writing group came up. "Yes," I said, "I will organize it. I plan to get serious again in. . .um. Four days."

The days are passing quickly with no signs of seriousness from me yet, though at least I've started blogging again.

It was certainly encouraging to find a review online of my short story, "Patron Saint of Trees," by Nichole Reber at her site, "The Review Review." You can read my very first review HERE.

Next week I will gather in my energy and be serious again. That gives me--let's see--about four days more. Perfect.

Truth is Overrated, Especially When You're Six

2012-01-11T20:53:00.006-05:00

Tonight we gathered around our kitchen table and bowed our heads over steaming bowls of homemade chicken soup. This introductory sentence might make you feel as if this was a peaceful occasion. Much of the afternoon had been relatively calm--the girls were happy, they'd decorated some cookies and rolled some biscuit dough into pinwheels I slid into a hot oven. But the chaos that strikes shortly before dinnertime had indeed knocked us all upside the heads like clockwork and by the time I sat down at the table, all I could do was tip my head back in utter exhaustion.

Elspeth wanted to pray.

She told us they always pray in school before snack. "Really?" I said.

"Yeah," she said, folding her hands together. "Mrs. E. [her kindergarten teacher] makes us."

"I don't think so," I insisted. "That's actually illegal."

"Well. . ." she hedged. Maybe you should know that Elspeth is currently telling tales about everything under the sun. . .she drops a lie as easily as sneezing or shrugging her shoulders--lies to help herself out, lies too when there's absolutely no reason to lie. "Okay," she admitted, "Ben and I pray sometimes before snack." (I can't imagine this happening since she usually sinks her teeth into anything in front of her without so much as a "Thanks, Bozo," but who knows?)

Nevertheless, we bowed our heads and Elspeth began: "Thank you, God, that I had a good day today. Thank you for my sisters, Merry and Beatrix. Thank you for this food and I am so grateful to Mommy for being patient with me and also because she adopted me. . ."

I tried not to laugh behind my folded hands because most of it was such a nice prayer, but Merry spoke right up. "You're not adopted, Elspeth!"

"Yes, I am," Elspeth said, looking up. "Mrs. E. told me I was."

That Mrs. E. Apparently I'm going to have to write a letter into the school. According to Elspeth, she is the source of all kinds of craziness. But this is the same girl who, in preschool, tried to convince me that her teachers were making them climb through roof panels onto the roof. She also spun such skillful tales of utter hooliganism perpetrated by a poor boy named Thomas that I actually believed her for a while until another mother pooh-pooohed me.

I can only hope Elspeth can manage to stay out of jail in later life. Hope springs eternal since she recently asked me, "Mommy, can I be an artist when I grow up?"

"Absolutely," I said.

"And a teacher?"

"Yes, you can choose what you want to be. You can be an artist and a teacher." (Hopefully not a convict).

She looked as if I'd handed her the keys to her freedom. "Really? You mean they'll LET ME?"

Ah, my girl Elspeth. The killer of all my parent pride, the source of much joy and delight. You'd better be a mighty fine artist, my dear, to warrant your wild childhood.

2011-12-21T02:04:00.004-05:00

Tonight I ate a half a chicken, stuffed under the skin with herb butter, that made me feel like a new person. Or maybe it was the bottle of wine that we finished with my sister and my brother-in-law, or maybe it was the mocha creme or the walk through the woods to the candlelit restaurant near the Puget Sound. . .or maybe it was all factors rolled into one delicious experience that made me feel that life was full to bursting with possibilities, all at my fingertips. If the Italian owner hadn't told us we weren't allowed to dance on the tabletops, I might have.

Here in Washington it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, though there won't be any snow for us. Tomorrow we'll take the ferry into Seattle to see the lights and ride the carousel with my brother.

We were talking tonight about the temptation to dream up a new life for yourself, and that dreaming is okay as long as it doesn't make you discontent with your life now. And I'm deeply grateful for all this life is to me now: my close community, family, and employments, our big old house and out-of-control garden. But sometimes I imagine what I want life to be someday: a tiny, tidy house, a garden just big enough for a vegetable patch, flowers, and a patio with a tiny table and herb pots, long mornings to write followed by a long, rambling walk down a quiet path by. . .where am I when I imagine this? By the sea? Back on Orcas Island? In East Africa? I have no idea.

Life is so often what we could not have dreamed, what has been given to us and fallen to us by a series of blind turns, what we have bungled into. What is intentional, of course, is how we stumble along our paths, with joy or with suspicion. How many undiscovered rooms still wait for me to open doors? I wonder. . .

Meanwhile, I find my thoughts returning to next semester. I won't be teaching and I'll finally have the time to work on a book. But I can't settle on a project. I want to compile a book of poetry, a novel, a children's book, and a memoir, but I have to choose one and stick with it. And stick with it I must, even through the long February days when I stare into the grey sky and find the same things over and over again--mostly bright birds with wild feathers askance, mostly red birds. Maybe I will have to swear off birds this winter.

Today is my Elspeth's birthday. She had a wonderful coming. Martin and I sang Christmas carols through my labor transition and then I rocked back and forth on a giant exercise ball and laughed with the midwife, Martin, and my mom, pausing to work through contractions until they intensified to such a pitch that I knew she was coming. I began pacing up and down the room and then I held onto Martin's neck and pushed her into the air and the midwife caught her like a football. That night I held her until morning, and I remember feeling completely content and happy. Her little head, soft with reddish hair, nestled under my chin. She slept so well and soon I took her home and placed her in a shaft of winter sunlight, where Merry knelt down and read to her from a tiny book. She felt like a natural, seamless addition to our family. Today I picked her up in my arms and smoothed a blond tendril away from her face, and though she is full of the moments of her own life and can't remember her genesis, she squeezed me back, and her arms were strong, and I love her for being full of exactly who she is.

It's late and I feel as though I am writing terribly, but I wanted to post an update even though I am as luxuriously full as a stuffed Christmas goose and as stupid. I hope tonight finds you all with something pleasant to drink, something lovely to read, and someone comforting to say goodnight to. Goodnight!

High Heels!

2011-12-15T16:30:00.002-05:00

Brilliant musician Greg Scheer writes:

I didn't write a poem about high heels, but I included high heels in a new song. I hope there's a prize or something, because I just ate up a half of a day on this absurd little venture: http://musicblog.gregscheer.com/2011/12/15/baby-youre-not-wearing-pants-again/

Listen to his song now before you hear it on Top Ten on your favorite radio station.

PLUS. . .Heather Long McDaniel submitted this beaute about a callous aunt from Pennsylvania:

There once was an aunt from PA
Who gave neices sharp heels for play
The aunt did not know
Of the pain in the toes
She doomed me to suffer that day

Don't be intimidated. Submit your art/poems/etc. about high heels and win Wazoo's fabulous (virtual) prize!

Advent Poem 2

2011-12-14T14:24:00.002-05:00

Today I look for you in birch bark
and find your eye seared black into its trunk.
Perhaps you are the bird that bellied to my daughter’s window
and opened white wings edged with blue.
From the spindle of a black walnut
you watched me with marble eyes,
ticking your face left and right like a mechanical toy.
But when you flew you were like snow falling.
Later I heard you, clawing at the window, scratching
at the frame. I wondered what you wanted.

If you call me with warble from the top of the birch,
will I hear you? Inside there’s a roar of heat,
the calling of my children’s voices, the smells of dinner.
Your feathers fluff against the cold. If I fed you,
would I know your secrets? Every thistle
bears stars, the soil smells of God.

Call for Poems

2011-12-13T16:59:00.003-05:00

While this is not really in the spirit of the Christmas season, and while I should be grading final projects, I've noticed lately that there's quite a bit of traffic to Wazoo generated by people hunting for. . ."poems about high heels." You faithful visitors may remember a poem I wrote about Merry's high heels last April, which was National Poetry Month.

High heels and I are not on intimate terms right now, nor do I know any women (or men) who wear them. But I'd love to post some fun, silly, or serious poems about high heels! You can leave them here in the comments section, with lines separated by back slashes ( / ) and I will publish them in their correct form. High heels in December? And why not? I've got a red pair the color of holly berries. They languish in the basement next to old seed packets. The girls try them on once and a while and trip and clomp around the laundry room. The girls LOVE them. Why? What is so inherently attractive about high heels?

So write me.

P.S. Weirdest search by a Wazoo visitor? "Bald flight attendants."

advent

2011-12-12T16:57:00.004-05:00

Now is the time of waiting,
the hours of music in the womb,
of fields swept up, covered in sheets
of snow. Gathering, sheaf and boil
is done, now jars gleam with dilly beans
and gemmed berries. Lone cats paw
through the garden. I think of you
and gather seeds, each one a womb.
In the spring after the last frost
I will scatter them over freshly turned
soil, scented richly as coffee. But for now

They lie ponderous in my palm
and I am full of their weight.
Holy winter, heavy with waiting,
grow in me a green thing
strong as grapevine.

2011-12-11T16:48:00.004-05:00

My story, "Name Finding," has been published at Literary Mama. Please read it (and leave a comment if you'd like) by clicking HERE. I hope you enjoy the site--it's not just for mamas, of course.

And. . .to read about my first experience hunting, check out my column for this week by clicking on the geranium at right. (Did I mention I never write my own headlines?) Also, while you may be the reader that takes the total reads to fourteen, the column is mostly read in print in this county and in the next. But online reads are important, too, so leave a message if you'd like! Finally, big thanks to Tonya for putting up with me as a novice hunter.

from Marial Thon in the Southern Sudan airport

2011-12-10T10:02:00.003-05:00

Dear All,

I'm waiting in a jumble of people in the Juba Intl Airport, sweating from every pore as people crowd into one another, many human scents wafting from our places of origin. The airport is not air-conditioned. There is one big room for all of the flights, domestic and international.

While I am writing the desk staff comes and check-in is done efficiently. I step around people to the immigration counter where they stamp my passport and then I fill in their register to give them a record of my visit. I go to security. I am given a quick pat down ignoring the lumps in my pocket and then through a metal detector that does not work.

My computer bag goes through the X-ray and the man tells me to take out the computer battery, which I do though he never looks at it except briefly when I hold it up.

I then pass into the one room departure lounge with very worn but fairly comfortable overstuffed leather chairs and sofas with crammed in everywhere suplemented by a few plastic chairs.

But before I sit down I have to pee. The door to the men's room lies directly in line with those coming into the room from security but there is not a door that will close. So those coming in get to see me standing at the urinal doing my thing. No washing hands here.

There is a sink but the entire top of the faucet-the part with the handle to twist, lies at the bottom of the basin, broken free from its threaded bounds.

But I'm on my way back to Nairobi and home-just waiting for the plane to land.

It's the five month birthday of Southern Sudan today-a new airport is being built built just down the way and I rejoice in their growing time.

Love,

Mere/Dad

Today, from Nairobi:

Enjoyed your blog on time. I built my workshop completely around proverbs and stories. So to begin to help folk understand that proverbs reveal something about the culture from which the people who created it came, I gave them two proverbs to consider. One was “A log can be in a river for a long time and never become a crocodile.” And the other was “Time is money.” I asked what they thought it meant, where they thought it was created and what it might show about the people who created it. The discussion of the last one brought out the huge differences that you referred to in the blog. It is not only chronos and kairos but time as repeated cycles vs a line. There is not sense of time as a commodity but, in facing modernity——[both have to be understood].

My correct Dinka name is Marial Thon (Thon pronounced with a silent “H” but aspirating the “T” sound but not the “O” sound as in “ton” but rather in “tone”). It means a “bull with black and white color & strong bull at the same time.”

Look forward to seeing you soon.

Love,
Dad

Tuck Away Your Watches

2011-12-09T09:24:00.004-05:00

One of my biggest problems when I returned to live in the US was time. In my memory, my childhood in Kenya is filled with expanses: expanses of savanna, only stopping at low mountains, dizzying expanses of sky scattered like a road with the brightest stars I have ever seen, moments stretched out like empty rooms full of slanting sunlight.

In Kenya, nothing ever began on time. Time was relational, not rigid. I remember my mother waiting at an intersection as two women chatted leisurely out their windows. You didn't go into any place, whether it was a home or a place of business, without first taking the time to exchange greetings. A handshake, inquiries as to health and family. Chai. Gifts. Meals. A place marked by an appreciation for relationship.

When I returned to college in Chicago, my heart constricted with clocks. I ran to classes and arrived breathless. I began to nurture what would be a life-long bitterness against time and its restraints, against the idea of being late--late to class, late to appointments, late to work. College was marked by intense heartburn, stress that resulted partly from over scheduled days. When I showed up a bit late for a meeting with a professor, she was curt and dismissive.

As an adult, I dream of those empty, unscheduled rooms of my childhood. As a writer, I thrive in spaces that are free from clocks.

My friend Carrie, who is also copastor of our Mennonite/Brethren Peace and Justice church nearby, recently spoke these reflections on time. Ironically, we'd jostled and pushed each other out the door to get to church on time not long before I sat and listened to her words. But sometimes you have to rush a bit to get to a place where you can be quiet and open yourself to being. I am not an advocate for sloth, just a passionate believer in time being surpassed by imagination, relationship, and a longing for open, quiet spaces. Madeline L'Engle discusses Cronos and Kairos. Kairos time, she writes, is the time of creation. We dwell in Kairos when we "lose time" as we create. Here's Carrie's take, just in time for the Advent season:

In Greek there are at least two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners. Chronos is where the word chonology comes from which gives the illusion of an ordered progression of time. Chronos is ticking of the clock, counting of shopping days until Christmas. . . Chronos makes us angry at our bodies when they don’t heal as fast as we think they should. Chronos makes us anxious about our self worth when our hopes and dreams haven’t been accomplished by the age we thought they would.

And then there is the other word for time: kairos. Kairos is the time when you are lost in the beauty of a piece of music or the reverie of poetry. Kairos is the moment you hold someone in their pain and when you’ve laughed so hard for so long your side hurts. Kairos comes in moments of meditation of watching sleeping children, of falling in love. Kairos means “opportune moment” and is used when referring to a different type of time, a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. …a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. A time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. . .

Kairos gives the soul a space to deepen when the body slowly heals. When our minds were set on certain lists of accomplishments that we thought we could control,Kairos presents us space to explore new possibilities . Kairos replaces counting down till Christmas with the patient waiting of Advent. And we can’t control it. No alarm clock will alert us to it. . .

You can find more of Carrie and her husband, Torin's, reflections by visiting their website HERE.

Better Late

2011-12-06T13:30:00.005-05:00

I haven't had the heart to throw away our squatty little Halloween pumpkins. I thought they were appropriate to keep around for Thanksgiving, but after the Christmas tree came out of storage and the twinkle lights mingled with their old ornament friends, I knew something had to be done about the pumpkins. They were suddenly gauche, awkwardly crowding the counters with their generous rumps.

I kept them out of guilt. They are technically pie pumpkins and could feed a village for a day, and I felt as though I should be chunking them, roasting them, pureeing them.

And I've promised the girls, particularly Elspeth, a jack 'o lantern for the past three or four years. And we've never, ever carved one. I remember my dad covering our table in newspapers, I remember the sweet, spicy smell as my mother stirred the seeds in the oven. I always assumed they'd carry around this quintessential American memory too.

But I am mighty afeared of any kind of craft. Tell me we're going to cut out construction paper turkey feathers or tie dye tee-shirts and I break into hives. You think I'm joking? Ask the women who know me on a daily basis. They believe me when I say I'd rather clean toilets than scrapbook. So while other families sport their meticulously carved gourds, our pumpkins always remain unblemished by knife or marker.

Elspeth has made a couple attempts to take matters into her own hands. One morning two years ago, I came downstairs and found my Wustof Chef's knife, seeds, and orange guts all over the play stove. Her friend Ben cowered in the corner. "I told her we shouldn't do it," he whimpered. I checked and they both still had all their fingers.

This year Elspeth found a tiny pumpkin from a trash heap in some yard, brought it home, somehow worked off the stem, and began painstakingly fishing around in its belly with a table knife. "Don't touch my pumpkin!" she pleaded before leaving for school, suspicious of what all my daughters believe is a compulsive throw-away obsession. (Bea just found her Thanksgiving hat in the garbage can, pulled it out, shoved it down over the crown of her head and announced, 'I made this in school!' My friend Sal alluded to unpacking ornaments every year and how the children delight to see their paper Santas and pipecleaner reindeer--years of December school projects. 'You mean you KEEP them?' I asked, aghast. It had never occurred to me that I shouldn't be layering them with discarded papers and banana peels in the trashcan).

Yesterday afternoon, when our table was loaded with my netbook, papers, and crumbs still left over from lunch, Elspeth brought her pathetic little pumpkin to the table and began pulling out seeds again. Enough is enough, I thought, whipping out our paring knife. So there, on our Christmas tablecloth, without newspaper or ceremony, Elspeth and I carved our first pumpkin together. Then we carved a pie pumpkin, too, who Elspeth said was the little pumpkin's mother. We dropped in candles and Elspeth turned off the lights and put her little arms around my neck. "They're so beautiful!" she exalted. So the Advent season found our family eating dinner with the lights low, gazing at our jack 'o lanterns, happy despite the smell of burning pumpkin--someone hadn't quite cleaned out all the guts.

There was a bit of a problem with the bigger maternal pumpkin, though. I had meant to knife in some eyelashes but my attempts made the mama gourd look lost in anxiety. "That's because she's worried her son [the little jack 'o lantern with one tooth] is going to get cut up and eaten," Elspeth told me. Or maybe she's worried she's going to get thrown down the hill for the groundhog to feast upon, which she will just before Christmas. Crafts have a shelf-life, especially edible ones.

Our Christmas jack 'o lanterns. It's better late than never, right? Maybe next year I'll actually roast the seeds.

But let's not get carried away.

2011-12-05T10:12:00.005-05:00

My dad recently left for Sudan. My mother told me he received instructions to bring food with him, since food there is sparse or nonexistent. . .so he took a big bag of trail mix. How long will this last him, I wonder?

Even in his remote location, he has access to e-mail, so he sent my mother a message that there is food though not much and the residents eat very small portions. I think he may lose quite a few pounds preChristmas. (It wouldn't surprise me if he gave away his trail mix--there's a family tradition of this. When she visited a refugee camp in Uganda, my sister boarded a UN plane back home wrapped in a tablecloth after leaving all her clothes behind. My mother has been known to slide curtains off the rod on the spot to gift them to a visitor who admired them. Keep an easy hold on things, my mother always taught us.)

Sudan gives me a bit of perspective; today, when I said, there's nothing for lunch, our refrigerator was full, our freezers packed. Our pantry overflows with cereal, cans, snacks, grains and pasta. We could survive for several months at least and eat heartily every day. What I meant this morning was, there's nothing prepared for lunch, as if making myself a pbj was a hardship. Or boiling noodles, or making soup, or defrosting a chicken.

On a lighter note, my mother just sent me this e-mail:
Your dad has been given a name by a group of Dinka women that is evidently a highly favored black and white bull, and they proceeded to teach him how to dance the bull dance. Sorry I missed that!

Maybe, she wrote in closing, he'll perform it for us this Christmas. Is that something we really want to see? My father, who has little inherent sense of rhythm, performing The Bull Dance?

Absolutely.

Dear Barnes and Noble,

2011-12-01T22:30:00.002-05:00

Tonight, on our date to your M______ store, we expected what we always expect on what has become our favorite date: a tall hot drink, peaceful music, and a few hours to shop and concentrate on some work. We are parents of three and do not go out much since it is expensive to hire a babysitter. Tonight, however, we were plagued by some of the worst holiday music I have ever heard. Mannheim Steamroller, of course, operatic renditions of "O Holy Night," and saccharine cooing of the most banal songs imaginable--all at high volume. I must say that we felt assaulted in a place that we usually love--it almost forced us out the door early. PLEASE tell your stores to choose their music more carefully, especially in the evening when one hopes for a more peaceful, contemplative experience--especially since we evening lingerers are looking for an escape from the tiresome soundtrack of most stores that dogs us through the season.

Thank you.

M C

2011-12-01T14:05:00.006-05:00

This morning my friend Sal drove up to the curb and I loaded four huge IKEA bags of recycling into her car. Someone who shall remain nameless had forgotten to rinse the black bean cans and there was a stench of rot hanging in the minivan air as we drove the two blocks to the recycling trailer.

A quick run into a packed post office to mail some late packages and we were on our way. . .but where? Let me give you a hint: I never go to this place, well, almost never. When we parked and walked in, Beatrix yelled, "Seattle!" because we only go to this place when we are on vacation.

Did you guess. . .the mall? If you did, pat yourself on the back. It was pretty empty today and the kids took off down the wide, gleaming aisles. Sal hitched up an ancient LL Bean backpack on her back and we felt just a bit out of place with all the Mall Moms. For us, the mall is a cross-cultural experience. I bought little gift for my mother (which shall remain unspecified in case she's reading), and I felt as though the woman across the counter with the thickly painted eyelashes who handed me my bag should have been speaking a different language. She asked for my phone number, which really baffles me, and I said, "Could I not give you that?" And then she asked for a contribution to St. Jude's, and I'm all for charity, but it feels a bit weird in the context of flashing cheap-but-expensive jewelry and headless manikins. So I said no.

Malls do something a bit funny to me, and it's not just sensory overload. I begin thinking maybe I'd like to buy things, a bunch of things. This consumerist urge is balanced by the absolute repulsion I feel when I walk by a store with banners of half-naked teenagers, reeking of cologne with a sign that says "Holiday Hookup." I mean, really. Martin and I did a mall crawl last year at Christmas. We went into a shop that I thought might have some nice clothes but the music was so loud that it actually bounced us back out of the door. "I don't think we're the intended demographic!" I yelled as Martin grasped the door jamb before we were blown away back to the food court and the immorally large pretzels.

Anyway, we had a good time nonetheless. There were some guys from a prison with dogs being trained for veterans who have suffered from PTSD, and we pet them for a while (the retrievers, that is). The kids played on some soft replicas of a stethoscope and a tongue depressor (the playground was financed by the hospital) and we bathed them in hand sanitizer before we fed them a picnic at the food court. Good time all around. I'm beat. Oh, and they went and stood mute in front of Santa Claus, who was so warm there was a fan trained on his bearded face.

By the way, click HERE to see the best thing that ever happened in a mall. One can only hope that the Christmas spirit surprises us like this.

Post Thanksgiving

2011-11-30T10:09:00.004-05:00

I fell off the bandwagon last week, blogging wise. Well, I'm back, for better or for worse.

How was your Thanksgiving?

Our turkey was a delectable homage to what a turkey can be if stuffed with apples, sage, and onions, if his skin is pulled from his breast and his flesh prodded with butter and garlic and a freshly ground spice rub, if indeed he is roasted slowly, breast down, then flipped and glazed with an apple reduction. This should have been enough to make me swoon but by the time I sat down to partake, I'd had a headache all day from telling the girls what and what not to do, and I was having a bit of trouble being grateful for anything. After dinner I lay down on the floor, lifted a limp hand to shove puzzle pieces across the floor to Beatrix from a catacomb of blankets. The turkey was a success (thanks to Martin). I was a Thanksgiving FAIL.

That night I lay in bed and searched my recent history to find just one kind thing that I had said to Elspeth. I came up empty. All day, and nothing but reprimands and grumpiness from me.

The next morning, however, I awakened renewed and determined to live the day better, and so I did. Elspeth and I got on like a house a fire all day, and I went to sleep much happier that evening. What is wrong with me sometimes? I can be such a cantankerous wench.

Our little Christmas tree winks from our sun room window, decorated with ornaments from around the world. We let the girls choose one new ornament every year from the Ten Thousand Villages store, and the "Elephant Tree" as I dubbed it for its preponderance of little Indian elephant ornaments, is a happy presence in our house.

I just taught my second and last class of the week, and as usually is the case, now that the semester is almost over, the students are open and easy with me and with each other. I should be conducting some interviews for columns but right now I'm happy to just sit for a while and contemplate magnetic poetry. Martin's mammoth metal desk has that one thing going for it: a big surface to craft some magnificent magnetic poetry. Here's my latest effort:

honeydrunk as a moon
some gift peaches
or white milk
but chanting spring
winds to winter moan
and dresses in bare sleep

Okay, the ending is a bit melodramatic. Indeed it is! But choices are limited, people.

Also, there are weird accidents that occur, such as the juxtaposition of these two words: boil mother.
or
vision friend
or
bitter afterpound,
which is what I am sporting postThanksgiving.

PS. To read a Thanksgiving reflection (around Tecumseh's prayer) in my weekly column, please click the geranium at right.

What Tecumseh Can Teach Us

2011-11-17T14:00:00.004-05:00

Chief Tecumseh of the Shawnee (died 1813), composed this exquisite poem that I introduced the other evening at a potluck. We took the third stanza and danced to it with the kids it a "Rite of Thanksgiving" (something we all need more of, I think). Tecumseh was no stranger to injustice or to the threat that outsiders brought to his people. He valiantly defended his peoples' rights even as they were stripped away. Stanza two charges us today to welcome strangers, just as a courageous group of Native Americans welcomed a bunch of cold, starving foreigners that first Thanksgiving.

There are some excellent challenges in his poem for us as we begin to ponder what it means to be thankful and live bravely.

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled
with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep
and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

2011-11-16T19:50:00.005-05:00

She sailed away on a lovely summer's day. . .

Oh, there once was a puffin. . .

The owl and the pussycat went to sea on a beautiful pea green. . .

Can you finish the entire poems, preferably to a tune?

It just struck me that all three of these are about water, sailing or oceans. This doesn't surprise me, really, considering my mother (who grew up in the West Indies) and my father (who grew up in tidewater Virginia), are both obsessed with the ocean and feel happiest when standing in sand.

Sailing, sailing, over the ocean main; Many a stormy wind come up till Jack. . .

I remember my mother at some harbor somewhere, breathing in deeply of a wind that smelled (I thought) like rotten fish. "Ah," she sighed. "There's nothing like the smell of the ocean!"

Result: I find myself driving and panting up the tight green hills of Pennsylvania; she rides a ferry through the Puget Sound on a regular basis.

"And children, don't forget your toothbrushes." Where's THAT gem from? Kudos to you who know.

2011-11-15T13:50:00.003-05:00

It's been busy, busy, busy, but with good things. And today it's dreary autumnal weather but at least the grass glows, and if there were leaves on the trees they would be glowing too. It's hard to say goodbye to color, but I suppose I should focus on tuning myself to the gradations of each color that is left: browns, greys, and soon, white. I will turn my eyes to this and try to appreciate what I can.

Of course, if you've seen my house, you know what a task this is for me. Our walls are blue, red, orange, two shades of yellow, green. . .I love primary colors ferociously. Maybe because I grew up watching bougainvillea clamber over trash piles and up hedges all year. You can't beat the colors of East Africa: Flame trees, all orange and red; jacaranda trees with purple trumpets; at school, always the sound of wind in tree branches, and the trees were never bare. Winter is hard. I long for color.

I was talking with a student and a friend this morning about grief--is it a colored thing? It surprises you, catches you like a bucket of water in the face, then sometimes like a wisp of smoke, thin and hard to smell. This student recently had someone who was like a brother die, and she was telling me how grief blindsides her in the middle of class, perhaps set off by a shred of conversation or a comment. I have found this to be true, too--perhaps I was most surprised at Catherine's birthday party back in early fall, when I was setting out plates and organizing food and readying the house for company--I suddenly lost all composure. Of course, I thought afterward, of course. In every previous birthday party for two or three years that I had hosted at my house because Nancy was sick, I would run around before everyone arrived, busy with details, but heavy deep down as I wondered, "Is this the last one?" I wondered that for three years while Nancy was sick. And suddenly, this year, it hit me: a birthday party for a girl whom I love without her mother, whom I also love. I remembered how Nancy always said that Catherine had been born on a beautiful, clear autumn day full of sunlight, a gift child.

Nancy believed in the cloud of witnesses--the abiding presence of those who have gone on before us who now stand all around us, reaching to us in support, celebration, understanding. They are not silent people; we just can't hear them, I suppose. They are much like the trees that circle me in winter time; I long to feel the warmth of their life, long to touch fans of soft green leaves, to sit in their shade. In winter time I remember green, and it is no less real because I cannot touch it. Faith for springtime, for buds opening and the ground thawing, faith that the trees are not dead even though they bow in wind and snow. Color hidden as a bird in a fist, glimpsed if only I could pry up one finger, find sudden joy in red feathers.

2011-11-14T23:06:00.002-05:00

My story, Patron Saint of Trees, printed recently in Southeast Review, is linked online at their site, so now you can read it. . .please click HERE.

Braiding

2011-11-13T19:59:00.003-05:00

My mind feels like it's stuffed with brussel sprouts, layers upon layers of words and images and shreds of things I'm supposed to remember and ambitions that are airless, unblown balloons.

Bea has burst two balloons in the last week, one because she was upset and banged it down on some pruned Russian Sage and the other, because she was having a lovely time and bounced it off the ficus tree. Only it didn't bounce--it burst and lay on the floorboards, nothing but a scrap of green rubber.

Parents, why do you give your children balloons? Why do you give them ice-cream cones? Who doesn't know the absolute heartbreak of walking out of the ice-cream shop, your heart full of a thousand licks and the thrill of ownership, and plop, on the concrete, melting fast, and your cone is just a cone with a thin ring of milky sweetness. Even those last drops are not sweet anymore; your riches are gone.

As an adult it is hard not to grieve these small losses when the sudden enormity is reflected in your child's eyes. Immediately I say, "Oh, honey, I'll get you another." If only all problems could be fixed so easily.

We spent a wonderful few days with Catherine, Nancy's beautiful daughter. On Saturday morning I braided her hair. It has grown long and lustrous through the late summer. The sunlight slanting through the window caught it, and I thought of the story of Rumplestiskin. The girls ran about the sun room and chatted and laughed, and I sat on the chair and the weight and privilege of brushing another's daughter's hair was full in me. Nancy, if it's possible, let your hands slip into mine as I touch your daughter's hair; let your fingertips feel the tug on her scalp as you draw three growing locks into one braid. Do not leave until the braid is finished, falling and shining down your daughter's back.

2011-11-10T09:29:00.003-05:00

Poetry Daily's featured poet, Paul Henry, from Wales:

My window is full of leaves.

My window is full of bare branches today, but for a few last burnished reds clinging to the Japanese maple across the street.

What is it with poets from across the sea? Why do their poems always sound just a bit more luminous?

Read the poem by clicking on "Your Daily Poem" at right. The last stanza filled me with sweetness though the sky hangs with typical western Pennsylvania gloom.

RE: babysitting

2011-11-09T21:08:00.003-05:00

Poetry reading tonight. We needed a babysitter. We found one. She wrote asking where our house was. Martin replied:

Super! We live on a hill and in a valley, everywhere and nowhere. On a tree and in an acorn. Squirrel mouth!

She never arrived tonight. I turned on the TV and told the kids not to climb counters or play with matches. I attended the poetry reading. We saved $20.

2011-11-07T14:07:00.002-05:00

I just found Bea in her room (where the little angel is supposed to be napping), trying to clean up a sea of baby powder from her floor with a red bandana. And the baroque music plays loudly as she wipes in time to the harpsichord! It's enough to make a mother like me, who has a truck load of work to do, impatient. A shuffle, paper flipped by an imprecise hand. She's reading. Guess that's better than a million particulates in the air. Speaking of which, I wonder if she can actually breathe in there. . .

O blast it all.

2011-11-04T12:37:00.002-05:00

Today is the third in a series of gloriously sunny days that peak in the mid 50s to 60s. Bea and I both have colds and were driving each other a bit batty this morning so off we went on a walk up through the neighborhood hills. We stopped for a while at Nancy's house, and I broke some leaves off her kale plants. Bea fanned the air with one; they were riddled with holes but still very beautiful. You can't tell we plucked any; the bushes are so dense and ruffly, planted right at the front step where I often sat with her.

And then I weeded. Nancy would have been sad to see the grass choking her bearded irises--she always gloried in their full, citrusy smell every year. She planted them in a wet corner of her yard along with purple echinacea (coneflowers) and something else feathery and green--fennel, I'm guessing. The echinacea has gone to seed, black spiky balls, and I left those, because I think they look pretty covered in snow. I made a small mountain of grasses and Bea ran up and down the lawn, eating (I later found out) at least one tiny purple berry that I think is poisonous. I watched her for signs of convulsions but she seems to be fine.

It was good to be alone in Nancy's garden with the plants she nested in the ground last spring. I pulled up the dried black stacks of basil, still redolent with scent. Bea picked the last of the tiny tomatoes and ate them and I walked home, the back of the stroller filled with kale leaves, which will be all the sweeter now after the first autumn frosts.

2011-11-03T13:52:00.002-05:00

Across the street, a brown circle in the grass where the neighbor's inflatable swimming pool sat all winter. A Japanese maple weeps red on the lawn, the peonies I left in my mind are brown and papery. I need to go outside.

wednesday mishmash

2011-11-02T19:19:00.003-05:00

I know this is bizarre, but I'm thinking how nice it would be to lower myself into a cup of hot cocoa, loop my arms around the edges of the cup, and push my face into a melting marshmallow.

Kind of disgusting but o so warm and sweet.

I interviewed two very intelligent zealots today who are leaders in the push for water quality, regulation and rights of land owners. I can't get them, or the issues, or the huge job of distilling almost two hours of interview into a few short columns out of my mind. Even when I was whacking back the hedges today--it was sunny and warm and perfect for outdoor work--my head spun with all I had heard. The chemistry is completely over my head but the urgency of the situation hits close to the heart, or should I say, to my mouth that I open to admit water, which, though it's filtered, is not as pure as I'd like and is certainly not good enough to give to my three daughters.

Sigh. Sometimes I think I was made to be just a poet and fiction writer. This journalism stuff is stretching me like taffy--see? What a terrible simile. It must be the stress.

One last thing. Last night I was taking a shower with the pocket door slid tightly to keep the bathroom as hot and steamy as possible. Suddenly, Elspeth, who was supposed to be sound asleep, burst through making a racket deserving of a large land mammal. "Mommy!" she said, as my precious steam leaked into the cold hallway.

"Mommy, Merry won't read me her WORDS and I want to hear them!"

Elspeth teeters at the brink of elementary fluency and not being able to read like her fourth-grade sister frustrates her sometimes. But I knew what she was talking about--Merry's teeny tiny journal--so diminutive, in fact, that Merry can fit only a few words on each page.

"She doesn't have to read you her words," I called from the shower. "She's writing in a diary, and diaries are private. You can have a diary too if you want, and then nobody can read what you write."

"Merry has a DIARY?" Elspeth was incredulous. "Like from her BOTTOM?"

"Go back to bed, and close the door after you." I had to grin, though--the lowest types of humor never fail to tickle a funny bone, even if its a hidden one you pretend you don't have.

16 oz jar: 13.25

2011-11-01T13:26:00.004-05:00

Only three left in stock on Amazon.com.

But I bought mine at $2.50 a jar at Target a week and a half ago. Martin scoffed to see the kitchen counter covered in a small army of Smucker's creamy and chunky. But we'll see who's making fun of whom when February comes and peanut butter is costing us over ten bucks a jar.

Panic struck my peanut-loving heart when my mother arrived two weeks ago and informed me a peanut shortage was just around the corner. The farmers in Georgia did not have a good year.

I love a good PBJ with a glass of milk. I love peanut butter on pancakes, in cookies, smeared on apples. I left a token two jars on the store shelf, but I greedily scooped the rest into my cart. And now I'm glad I did, because the price on Amazon has doubled since I checked last week. Find your favorite peanut butter, people, and stock up. The day of reckoning is near. Read more by clicking: PEANUT BUTTER PRICES SKY ROCKET

2011-10-31T20:04:00.003-05:00

World Concern, where my dear dad works, got a pretty great shout-out from the NY Times. Read about the good they're doing through food vouchers in a Somalian town struck by famine by clicking: World Concern

2011-10-29T11:34:00.002-05:00

Last night, after the girls organized their heaps of trick or treat candy, Bea seized a Peanutbutter Cup and retreated to her Secret Place. (We trick or treat on Thursday--strange? Yes. It's a town tradition).

Secret Place is behind an armchair in the sun room. It looks as if Merwin the Mouse has taken up residence but it's Bea who discards candy wrappers, hides cell phones, and squirrels away her sisters' small toys.

Elspeth found the orange Reese's wrapper and produced it triumphantly. "Bea stole candy!" she announced, to which I responded with a stock line, drawn from many stock lines that I say to be a good parent even though they bore me:

"Well, since Bea chose to enjoy her treat early, she doesn't get any later."

Bea's face crumpled. "Mommy," she choked out, "You bweaking my heawt."

"What?"

"You're breaking my heart, Mommy," she said, beginning to sob.

So now I'm a heartbreaker. Better get used to it, girls. It won't be the last time.

We saw God today and I mean that literally

2011-10-28T16:03:00.008-05:00

"I just saw God," Beatrix declared calmly. I looked around the shelves of budget books for a kid's Bible.

"You mean you saw him in a picture," I said.

"No. I saw him."

"You can't see God," I said. I was tired and feeling less imaginative than usual.

Bea smiled. "Yes, you can." She wandered toward the poetry section and pointed. "There he is!"

A man with a white beard and a button-down shirt stared at the spines of books.

"That man there?" I whispered. "That's not God."

She nodded her head and crossed her arms. I'd just read her Aladdin, King of Thieves, most awful of Disney books. I was ready to browse a little myself and go. Martin was engrossed in the poetry section and I'd replaced several pink Christmas books and sat on a tiny chair and sang nursery rhymes as Bea plunked on an electric piano. The books were of middling quality but they were cheap. And God was apparently interested in a deal, because he was there.

"It is God," Bea insisted.

"Let's go ask him," I said, pulling her over to the bearded man. I thought it was odd that Bea had picked out a white bearded man, the classic image of God from Michelangelo to the 1950's, especially because we have never presented her with any like images, preferring to leave the physical God qualities up to her. It's hard enough to explain "spirit" to an adult, let alone a three-year old who demands, "Well, where? I can't see!"

But she had found God now, in the stacks of Half Price Books.

"Sir?" I asked. "Excuse me, sir?" I stepped closer. "Sir!"

He looked up. "Yes."

"Sorry, sir, my daughter would like to know if you are God."

He smiled. Mildly. I was surprised--I thought he'd put his head back and roar with laughter. I would, if someone asked me if I were God. He acted as if he got this question all the time. Bea was just one more in a long line of kids who thought he might be God.

"No," he said. "I'm just an engineer. And I forgot my flip-up tie today."

What's a flip-up tie?

He went back to browsing.

On the way home, as I told Martin about the encounter, Martin said, "If you asked God, would God answer you directly?"

"Maybe not. The man said he forgot his flip-up tie."

"That's probably just what God would say," Martin said, flicking on cruise control. We had thirty minutes to get back for Elspeth's school party.

"He did say he was an engineer," I said. "I guess that squares."

As for Bea, her faith remains unshaken. When I put her down for a nap, she pointed to a picture of a man in a yellow robe that hangs on the wall of her room. "That's God," she says. "And he has a beard."

Which may explain why Merry, who easily feels guilty, was always terrified of men with beards.

On the other hand, Bea has never singled out a bearded man and called him God before, and we see plenty of beards in our parts. If God did make an unexpected appearance at a discount bookstore, I missed the biggest chance of my life. I would have asked him some questions and I would have waited while he answered, even if his answers were as weird as the flip-up tie. And if you've read the Bible, the chances are pretty good that the answers would have been full of bizarre. Still. . . .

2011-10-24T12:50:00.001-05:00

My column this week seems to have stirred the pot a bit. Read it by clicking on the geranium at right. What do you all think about the gas boom in our part of Pennsylvania?

2011-10-21T13:42:00.006-05:00

My father, who is currently waiting with his pants rolled up to his knees in Bangkok, wrote that though he was distracted by the flood waters rolling their way, he was nevertheless sorry to hear about poor Merwin's destruction.

Dad, Merwin's not DEAD. Merwin lives, at least he did when we slipped him from his black box, the clever TIP TRAP. Merwin enjoyed his tasty peanut butter snack until he bolted like a flash into the underbrush by our favorite cemetery, the one where Martin once fled from a threatening buck and where a stained glass woman with strange eyes and foreboding mouth terrifies college students. THAT cemetery, the one to which I hiked with you and Mom one sunny Christmas afternoon when the house was heavy and somnolent with pumpkin pie and turkey smells. We stood in the crisp air among the stones on the hill, watching the red-roofed houses sleep off Christmas dinner. On the way back you trapped yourself on the banks of Purman Run creek, rolled up your pants, threw across your keys, wallet and phone, and proceeded to wade the icy, rushing waters.

Turns out that western Pennsylvania adventure was good practice for now, now that you are waiting for a flood that hopefully won't reach you. Why do you end up in floodwaters? Wasn't Mozambique enough for you? Perched on a roof, throwing children and women into helicopters, didn't you decide then, "This is a thrill but perhaps not one that I should repeat." ??? Is mouse-catching and disposal and the thrill therein not enough for your sense of excitement? Must you go to Thailand for MORE?

In all seriousness, we're glad you're there helping; we hope you do not see water coming your way; and not to worry, Merwin lives and you can now concentrate your energies on survival. I thought I'd put your mind to rest.

I remain
your faithful daughter

PS. The kids and I wish you were here eating apple cake and pumpkin cookies.

2011-10-19T19:53:00.004-05:00

Dear one,

I surprise myself: I miss you. Will this letter find you out in the grey cemetery? It's raining tonight, and I'm thinking of you, hoping you've found a warm place among the dripping goldenrod, beneath the deep sweet mat of maple leaves.

The night we finally realized you must leave, I made you a last meal--your favorite. Pouring peanuts into a bowl, Martin laughed at me for grinding them for you, but I knew you'd enjoy it. You never really appreciated my cooking but by golly, I knew you loved peanut butter.

The next morning, leaning over the long black box where you lay, we knew it was time to ease you into the car for our first and last trip with you. The box was so dark, we could barely believe you were inside. The girls wanted to come, but I told them I would describe the moment of your departure, and I vowed to memorize the trees, the way the road curved up toward the skyline, the way we said goodbye to you. I even brought my camera, but it would be to no avail--you left us much too quickly.

We thought it would be a safe place for you, the quiet of the grey stone. From the hill, you can see the whole town with its towers and steeples laid out before you like a sea full of ships. The morning was cool, the sky bright through layers of mist.

We stopped the car and stood around your box for a while. And then we said goodbye, and you were gone in an instant, dissolving into the underbrush. We got back in the car and drove slowly away, and the sky in my rear view mirror filled with illuminated clouds, so bright I stopped the car, jumped out, and watched them, wondering that they could look so much like another world passing over this one.

At home since you've been gone, I miss your face in the evenings, the way you stopped and turned your head as you looked at me. I miss the sudden sound of your entrance when you joined us in a room, the feeling that I was never completely alone with you nearby.

You were such a fastidious, unassuming presence here, dear Merwin, but it always seemed as if you should not be with us. And now you have gone and there are no more Merwins, no shadows of you, as I once thought. You, with your sleek brown face and cunning manners, were one of a kind.

I have to admit, I half hoped that perhaps you had thumbed your considerable nose at us and stuffed the box with a decoy, and that when we reached the cemetery we would suddenly find that it was not you inside, but some impostor, a limp doll or a scrap of blanket. I had faith in you, Merwin, as someone of letters and intellect. But I was mistaken.

I hope this epistle reaches you somehow, Merwin, and I hope that you have not wandered too close to the buildings next to the cemetery hoping for respite. I have heard they are cold-blooded killers there waiting for you and your kind. Much luck, Merwin, and may you have a litter of twenty, twenty times over.

Yours,

K Cockroft, Wazoo Farm

2011-10-18T08:43:00.002-05:00

The Southeast Review's latest issue is out and my story, "Patron Saint of Trees," is inside. Click HERE to go to the site.

Season Change

2011-10-17T12:37:00.005-05:00

In the garden, still a few globes of color
whirling in gusty breath that shakes trees,
catches bristle-tips of squirrel tails,
flickers like candles in gathering dusk.

Now is the fat time
before all is still
and winter holds the earth,
all the quiet beasts,
even fishes ice-suspended.

And I began to exhale until the release
is too much and I grasp it all up again,
the black pencil-lines of cosmos,
corn silk, raspberry stain
and like a child hoarding toys,
I hate winter--
softened now by summer days,
bare feet, rosemary hours
and the old maple, a grandmother
suddenly young again, her leaves
so tender and cool. I wanted dense
shade, rain, clockless evenings.

Some of us get fancy

2011-10-15T09:34:00.001-05:00

dandy lion or

their version of Dandelion (original by Don Freeman)

Question

2011-10-14T17:30:00.004-05:00

Beatrix just asked me: "What do cats do in the morning when they wake up?"

We are fresh from the shower, smelling of herbs and shampoo and baby powder. Our hair mops around our faces.

"Maybe they do the polka," I said.

"Like this, mama--" Bea held up her hands in front of her, fingers together, and washed the air with them. "Or like this," she added, dropping to the floor in her fireman pjs. "Meeeow, meeow."

"I don't know," I said, thinking that cats do not need to dress, or brush their teeth, or eat muesli. "What do you think, Beatrix?"

"You just ask yourself, mama," she said.

So I will be asking myself this evening, as we eat breaded cod and hot oven fries, as I drink another beer with Martin, What DO cats do when they wake up?

I saw a sleek white cat walk on tiny paws through our garden, around the lavender and beside the front bed. She brushed the cosmos struck to black seed by autumn. . . .

2011-10-13T08:46:00.002-05:00

FYI: Ten Mile Creek Reading Tonight! Click HERE.
Exciting news on Merwin to come.

Martin's in Prairie Schooner!

2011-10-12T13:36:00.007-05:00

In certain Northern cities, / that ting of unexpected thaw. . . So starts my beautiful poet-husband's poem just published in Prairie Schooner, one of the country's best and most competitive literary journals. How does he do it--nail images head-on, wrap them up in the ribbons of language, place them in perfect form, like divers lined up, poised, dancing through the air. . . .

My favorite line in the poem, "False Spring," above, reads: ". . .air / earthen, diaphanous / caught up in curtains." Actually, maybe my favorites are ". . .a math of sprung / windows, starlings inked on rooflines." But I'm a sucker for the word diaphanous.

Martin's second poem that appears in the fall issue is "Elephants," which is set just down the road from us here in Pennsylvania. The poem begins by comparing the hills to sleeping elephants, and continues "but then just yesterday I saw / light on Purman Run / so broad and pure. . ." And there's that perfect balance between the solid and the imagined, what is said and what lingers in the air between words.

After living with Martin for many years, I understand that the words that make these poems ring comes from really hard work. Last night I looked over and he was about pulling his hair out by the roots as he worked. Every word is chiseled out of a mass of stone, comes free smooth and miraculous in his palm.

A student of mine said today in class after I had shared yet another anecdote about Martin editing my work, "You make it sound like he's really tough on you." I answered, "Well, we've been married twelve years. By now, I really trust him. I know he believes in my writing. If he hands back twelve pages with one sentence circled, I've usually already sensed that this is the edit that I needed and couldn't admit yet. And I do the same thing with his poetry."

I really do feel lucky to be married to another writer, and what a happy surprise it's been to find out that we are two writers. . .when we first married, we were kids. We didn't know what we were going to be, really, and maybe you shouldn't, not right out of college, not in a way that means your shoes will be concreted to one place for the rest of your life.

You can't read Martin's poetry online, sadly, but you can order a copy of Prairie Schooner or drop by our house and read our copy. Congratulations to Martin!

Questions I'd Like to Ask M

2011-10-11T19:18:00.005-05:00

Subject line just in from Mr. Patrick David, in my spam box: "OPEN THE ATTACHMENT AND GET BACK TO ME." No problemo, Patty. I'll just click on your bonny attachment and wait for your call.

I'm feeling pretty good at the moment because I just finished a feature article on the Town and Garden Country Club (it's their 60th anniversary); the sheer weight of information and expectation was hanging over my head like an anvil. So I began to chip away, evah so slowly, remembering all the while that tomorra is anutha day. . .and now it's done! Hallelujah! The first draft was so boring that Martin fainted into a deep sleep while reading it, but the second and final draft moves along at a crisp pace and even I am still interested when I read it.

Two people in particular fascinated me. The first was a woman in her mid 90's who has spent her life saving and then giving money (along with her husband) to colleges and other worthy institutions. Sitting in this woman's modest home, you would never guess the astounding amount of funds this woman and her husband have given away. I didn't see many ornaments in her home besides a vase her mother had painted, a painting she had done of bearded irises, and a pretty table runner she sewed. Her husband built the house and they have lived there for sixty years. She sat in the sunporch, laughing and chatting with me, light catching the plant next to her elbow. She described the sacrifices her father (who worked at a coal mine) and her family made to send him, and then herself and her brothers, to college. She was handing over all her extra pocket change to the bank teller when she was a kid, depositing it in her education account that would grow sufficiently over the years to send her to college and to graduate school at Duke. She was married during World War II, and seventeen days after the wedding, her husband, who had already returned to the service, was sent to Africa. For two and a half years.

Before I left she told me how she had taken a small handful of hollyhock seeds, planted and watered them in a box. All winter she watched the tiny stems unfold: two, three, four leaves. They bloom in a bright, majestic row in her garden this summer.

Though she is almost 101 and can't talk or hear much anymore (so I didn't get to meet her), M, another woman, intrigued me. She earned a degree in home economics, never married, and worked 19-hour days operating a ferry boat (it was part of an inheritance), a rough task that involved unsticking the ferry when needed and transporting miners across the river and back. In the photo, her face is exquisite: creamy skin and movie-star eyes, a hat turned back so she could see where the boat was headed. Amazing. The woman who visited and told me about M mentioned that M's eyes are still as beautiful and as captivating as they were when she was a young woman with an inherited ferry boat and endlessly long days in front of her. And I want to ask her a whole book of questions, want to hear her voice rising and falling as she explains what her life was like, why she persevered, if she enjoyed her job, whom she met, if she would do it all over again if she had the chance.

Before I change into my jammas, something I am anticipating with glee, I will give you a quick update on Merwin. Seen, once, at 7:00 as I sauteed onions, skipping with umbrella in paw from the kitchen cart under the piano. He was wearing a fake glasses/nose combo, but I recognized him, all right. Tomorrow, the trap comes.

I am a sentimental fool

2011-10-10T18:41:00.006-05:00

Merwin miraculously appeared in two places last night at almost the same time. This is how I think he did it, but first let me describe Merwin's first appearance. Our friend John glimpsed him in the hallway. "You've got a mouse!" he announced, and offered to lend us a trap.

"Are you going to tell him?" Martin asked. Somewhat sheepishly, I explained how we had gotten to know Merwin over the past couple weeks and couldn't bear to kill him. John chuckled in disbelief and Merwin's neck was safe for another night.

Merwin must have heard our conversation and felt a little nervous at the mention of a trap because at that point, he scaled our heating pipe to the second floor, probably with the little ropes set he ordered from Amazon (it arrived yesterday morning, in a wee little package, with Merwin's name typed on the front. Next time I need to tell him about the Free Shipping option.)

Later that night, as I stood upstairs, poised to scratch Bea's back as she lay in her crib, Merwin streaked across the floor, almost over my feet.

"I'm getting used to that scream ," Martin said, coming into the room, kneeling down and singing to Merwin in the voice he reserves just for mice. "Come on, little buddy!"

The girls were delighted by my scream and my subsequent perch on the black four-legged stool, and they ran from their bedrooms and began a Merwin search.
But he was nowhere to be seen.

Not until. . .later still that night, when I was grading essays on the couch. Now, Merwin's got this routine down, so I should have been expecting him, and I should not have shrieked like a stuck pig when he scurried across the floor, almost over my feet again, and scooted under the couch. I set my feet on our coffee table refused to get up all night. It was a good excuse to beg Martin to serve me my Sleepytime Tea.

Either Merwin is getting really fast and efficient or there are more than one Merwin. I have to admit, I thought the Merwin I saw two nights ago lacked a certain perkiness about the ears.

After two attempts at setting up my own traps with bowls, spoons, a trail of Fruity Cheerios (which Merwin snubbed)--and then, an ingenious little track that led to a delicious peanut butter cracker plopped on the bottom of a tall trashcan, I have decided that my own inventions, though FANTASTIC, are not smart enough for Merwin, who is after all a poet and a mouse of letters.

So I ordered a live trap from a selection at Amazon, much to the relief of Elspeth, who begged me last night and again this morning, "PLEASE don't kill that mouse, Mommy!" Little does she know what a sentimental fool her mother has shown herself to be.

Waiting Breathlessly

2011-10-04T14:57:00.005-05:00

Beatrix, missing as of ten minutes ago, was found buckled into her car seat out in the blue Subaru. I waved to her through the glass of the sun room window, and she waved back through the glass of the Subaru's window, grinning like a leprechaun. I wonder if she's imagining herself on an exciting trip. It's been grey in our county for about six days running, so maybe she's hoping I'll come out and drive her to Texas.

My father just sent me an e-mail that began, "Waiting breathlessly for an update on Merwin."

Last night, we heard him. Once again, he appeared only to me, running from behind the piano into the kitchen, from whence we heard, throughout the evening, rustlings and crunchings. We were bombed last night, my eye was dry and felt blasted by desert wind as I stared at my column, which was a jumble of facts that I had no energy to find a form for; Martin was grading a stack of student reflections and he kept groaning, "I don't know how long. . ." The appearance and bustle of Merwin actually perked us up somewhat. He was just starting his day at ten o'clock at night; he wasn't tired; he was feeling industrious and inquisitive. Maybe we could follow suit.

That night, I muttered from my pillow (into which I was dissolving and becoming one): "We've got to get rid of Merwin before he chews through an appliance. I know who's going to be cleaning up his poop, and it's not you."

"I can't just get rid of someone I'm starting to know," Martin said. (Apparently, during my absence this past weekend, Merwin appeared to Martin several times, and it gave him a sense of peace and comfort. For my part, I saw a row of dead, stuffed mice in the Museum of Natural History in NYC and lovingly tried to pick out the one that most closely resembled Merwin. It must have been because they were dead, but none of these mice had the same style or perk that Merwin possesses in spades). "I know him now and I can't just break his neck," Martin persisted. "It feels wrong."

Plans this weekend, then, include finding a "Have-a-heart-trap," in which we will hopefully catch Merwin and transport him to a place of safety. . .far away from our house.

But here's a postscript: Though I appreciate him on a personal level, I'm not too impressed with Merwin as a mouse. Today while rearranging a pile of blankets and pillows in the sun room, I found the remnants of a pretzel and a grape, abandoned by the children some afternoon a while ago, and not too appetizing for a human but pretty darn tasty if you're a mouse.

I know Merwin's been around and goodness knows he's had plenty of unsupervised playtime, but he hasn't touched the unintentional offerings. What is he, a gourmand? Is he waiting for his own cheese platter? A thimble of champagne?

Curious, very curious. . . .

2011-10-02T20:57:00.004-05:00

Just drove back from NYC. I walked the busy sidewalks with two wonderful women, and we left our collective nine children at home with their three respective dads. What a good time it was. We even got in on the demonstrations you heard about this morning on the news. At the park next to Wall Street, we walked through the crowd, received some literature, and, having seen our fill, ducked into an Irish pub. Later that night on our way to Serendipity for the largest, most obscene banana split I have ever seen, we saw a bus full of the demonstrators, who had apparently spilled across Brooklyn Bridge, handcuffed and filing into the police station. This morning on our way back to PA, we heard the drums of the marchers and said, "Wow! We were right there!" Pretty interesting.

Photos will follow: Grand Central Station, Central Park, The Smithsonian, the Staten Island Ferry (which we sprinted from the subway to catch at 11:30 last night)--and much more. The short verdict: I LOVED it.

Update: Merwin the Mouse

2011-09-29T09:50:00.003-05:00

If Merwin weren't so minute and darling, we would have less trouble doing away with him.

As it is, Martin and I spent a good deal of last night chasing Merwin around the house. Yes, after a last snide comment that the mouse was my spirit animal and only existed for me, Martin finally saw him. "He's a little guy," he said, and he is. He's like a storybook mouse; he's got tiny black pointed ears, an intelligent face, and gleaming black fur.

But he does NOT belong in our house, even if he is handsome. I can see Merwin in a little cozy hole under the garden, with a potbellied stove, a thick rug, an easy chair, and a cup of Earl Grey. Hold on. Maybe he's a green-tea mouse. It's hard to tell.

Anyway, last night Martin armed himself with a bowl and a plate. I went nowhere without a chair to stand on. At one point, we got Merwin cornered in the front hall closet. Martin crouched down with his bowl--I was terribly impressed at his bravery, but as he said with bravado, "I've been this close to a black bear. What's a mouse to me?"

Merwin kept poking his little black nose out into the hallway, whereupon I would shake a hand towel at him to make him retreat back into the recesses of the closet. We finally blocked off his escape routes, I perched on a chair, ready to inch the vacuum cleaner forward, thus coaxing Merwin to flee into Martin's blue bowl.

"All right, easy now," Martin instructed, as I lifted the Dyson. . .slowly, slowly. No sign of whiskers or tail anywhere. We let out our breath, studying an apron that had fallen in a heap, wondering how the little rodent had hid so well. . .and then--shazam! Merwin scrambled down from the bottom of the vacuum, where he had jammed himself into the roller, and he was off with a flash of brown fur.

Discussion followed as to where he might have hidden next; under the piano or in the sun room. Martin sauntered around the room in a non-threatening way, calling, "Come on, little fellow. . .come on. . ."

But Merwin was gone for the night. The problem is, we're getting a bit fond of him now. His speed and sneakiness is impressive and we're gaining a begrudging respect for his intelligence and downright cuteness. I even found myself thinking that I should perhaps leave him a little treat for the night--a bowl of Kashi Autumn Wheat crumbs. . .Yes, Merwin would love that.

But in the wee morning hours, I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. I had been awakened by the sound of tiny squeals, accompanied by the scattering of--not one--but many little feet. It sounded like a herd of mice, with Merwin right at the front, leading the brigade with a toothpick lifted like a sword. . .I found I did not like the reality of a full-scale invasion.

And what's the old adage? Where there is one mouse, there are always two? Or three? Or an army?

Martin tried to convince me the hubbub was only a group of swifts in our chimney, but I think he might be trying to protect Merwin with smoke and mirrors. The thought of our little mouse smashed in a trap does fill me with regret, but I know, no matter how admirable Merwin is, he has to be digesting food. . .and excreting. And when I find the little black pellets in my dishes or towels, Merwin's days will be numbered. Poor little guy. If only he would see reason and leave quietly. I'd even send him off with a good supply of Tetley English Breakfast. Or maybe Orange Pekoe? It's hard to tell.

2011-09-28T13:27:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry, but I haven't had the time to post photos recently. I wish I could post a photo now of the stunning colors outside of my window, but the second-hand rendering would just be a disappointment, anyhow.

It's raining, so the garden path is a dense, layered, carpety sort of green, and the different tones of red and white in the brick path Martin lay are as faceted as a cut stone; then there's the lupine blue of the shed, edged with bright white, and the flowers themselves: pumpkin-orange cosmos against pink coreopsis, traffic-cone nasturtiums, the delicate, yellowy lace of dill, the Queen Anne's Lace ruffling up everywhere because we can't be bothered to pull it up.

And now I come to the real drama of our lives these days: one wee brown mouse. This chocolate-colored mouse appeared last week while I was watching TV; he scooted across the floor, spotted me, and skittered back into the sun room. Since that time, he has appeared multiple times and each time he is more brazen in his entry and less fast to disappear. Last night, while I was reading, he ran into the living room again, heard my voice, and came straight for my feet.

EEEEEKKK!

I am silly around mice.

I would not put my feet down for the rest of the evening, and Martin had to come into the room and fetch things for me.

Then Martin had a dream, in which the brown mouse appeared, pleading with Martin to spare his little life.

This morning, at BREAKFAST, mind you, while I, Martin, and Bea were drinking our tea, the mouse twirled across the pergo, gave a little bow, and ducked under the dishwasher.

EEEEEEEK!

The mouse! I yelled, The MOUSE IS HERE! He will be waiting for me when I return from class! I will never be able to put my feet on the floor again!

"He's just a little mouse," Martin said, "And besides, I'm beginning to think he doesn't really exist."

I have seen this mouse, in Martin's company or alone, about five times at least. Martin has never, ever, not even for an instant, spotted it. Except in his dreams, and those dreams are not helpful for one resident of Porter Street who KNOWS the mouse will march over her feet, playing cymbals and a bass drum and sticking out its tongue, with a whole band fleet of mice behind it.

It is kind of a cute little guy, and if I were desperately lonely or in prison for ten years, I would be tempted to befriend it. But, matters being as they are, I want him to just GO AWAY. Maybe I'll try to talk to it nicely and reasonably, or write a letter and leave it in the crack in the sun room floor. He seems like a pretty rational fellow.

2011-09-27T13:31:00.004-05:00

I am hearing nothing on my creative writing these days.

At the end of the summer, I got a piece of fiction taken by Literary Mama and I am waiting for a contract from Ladybug Magazine for a children's story, so I'm excited about both those things. I also received about ten hundred million rejections, which is, in a way, better than silence.

And in keeping with my impatient personality, I would like to hear from some other journals, even though--and history tells us it is so--the answer will probably be "This piece is not right for our publication. . .Best wishes. . ."

Perhaps my impatience derives from a deeper source: the complete absence of my own creative writing right now; it makes me churn deep down. I feel as though I stop hearing, seeing, tasting as well as I do when I am writing. I am WRITING, of course, in the form of my weekly column for the newspaper, and I am teaching my class at the U, which I'm enjoying immensely, but something feels a bit off, as if I've left the kettle on or there's something sour in the fridge that I've been avoiding for a while. And it's forming a nasty yellowish pool that will stick to the sponge when I finally address it. . .speaking of which, I think I have some rather mature tuna fish on the bottom shelf. This is not a metaphor. I really do.

On a different note, Beatrix seems to have given up her naps, which means less quiet time for one mama. What in the world?

It seems I have given up titles. I never was any good at them anyway. Did you know columnists never title their own columns? It is done for them, and it feels a bit as if you're having your shoe laces tied for you after dressing yourself. It actually is because of the lining space and is a formatting issue. . .and Bea's up again, and I'm gone.

2011-09-26T19:37:00.002-05:00

I just looked outside to the flash of blue and white lights sparking over the wet pavement.

"How we doing?" a male voice said, loudly, and with a certain weight of authority you only hear from police officers and such.

The guy didn't have his lights turned on, and an amicable exchange followed, closing with the two men wishing each other Bon Nuit before they coasted from the curb, one toward home, the other to prowl the streets for another few hours at least. I also saw a police car crawling through our graveyard tonight, its headlights flashing over grey gravestones. The cause? Drug bust? Maybe just a quest for some peace and quiet? It is a nice graveyard, up on a hill over town, frequented by deer and shaded by huge oaks and maples. I like taking guests there sometimes. We always stop by the mausoleum and look through the bars to the stained-glass window, which depicts a sour-looking woman in a stiff collar, two mounds of severe brown hair, and what I can only term "wall-eyes" though I don't suppose that's the right term anymore. One eye looks to the right and the other to the left, and the stained glass is lit from behind just right and flanked by rows of stone coffins on either side.

Did I mention I want to be cremated? Please, nobody preserve my image in stained glass. I think a nice park bench with my initials, under a tree but not covered in bird excrement, would be nice.

I was going to write about an awful thing that happened close to where we live--a murder/suicide--I interviewed a pastor who works in the community this afternoon for the column this week. But it's too heavy, a whole ocean of misery. Much easier is the tiny blips that color our moments: eating chips and salsa tonight with the girls, the rain that hit the back of my neck as I closed the shed doors, the flashing squad car lights just now, how it all turned out so amicably for a man who might have gone home with a ticket, but didn't.

2011-09-24T21:05:00.003-05:00

In this world, mapped with sorrow, there is joy, flashing like sudden light off a window. It blinds me sometimes.

Mostly there are everyday moments of working, cleaning, sitting and rising, the talk, laughter and complaints of the children, the daily hum of routine: brushing teeth, showering, carrying plates from the kitchen table to the counter. There are little eddies of stress and fury, of disbelief in the craziness of my children. . .Oh, no, you DIDN'T. . . .

and then there are moments of wonder, like last night when I looked out of the upstairs window and saw our groundhog and our racoon perusing the brush pile together as if they were old pals out for a night on the garden, or the girls brushing our big stuffed lion's mane and loading him with bows just like Dandelion, or Bea finally falling asleep, swiftly and mercifully, after crying all evening. And too, there are moments of gratitude, like the first blast of hot water on the back of my tired neck, a cup of tea sipped hot instead of luke-warm, the flame of a candle in the evening, a familiar and welcome face unexpectedly at our door.

Ah, the days are too short. I drove up with a friend to the next county to pick up bushels of MacIntoshes and Johnnygolds and the trees and brush sang out that this world of ours is toeing the edges of summer, applying its last makeup and about to whirl out onto stage in full costume, no rehearsals anymore, and I was surprised. Is October really almost here?

Friday Night Picture Show

2011-09-23T19:44:00.004-05:00

The water is vastly colder than it looks. Orcas Island, Puget Sound, Washington. Martin and our bro-in-law, Luke.

Feelin' groovy.

Energies

2011-09-22T19:39:00.003-05:00

My loves, I have good news. Apparently the British lottery has awarded me their highest prize. I just got the message my e-mail. I have many, many plans. And I think all my friends will want to share in the cash cow so get your proposals together now. . .

Actually, I do have good news. We were granted an extra hour of time tonight, so instead of the hour closing on ten, it is only almost nine. Elspeth did not practice piano at eight, as we thought and cursed ourselves, the gods, and our schedules for our lack of time management, but at seven! Martin and I were generally starting to be a little grumpy until we realized that I had set the clock ahead by an hour--joy was ours. One more hour tonight to pursue our own peaceful edges, to make lunches, to drink Sleepytime tea.

Also in the jubilant Cockroft news: Elspeth can now play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on the piano all by herself. She was so excited by this that she sprung up from the piano bench and streaked through the living, dining, kitchen, and hallway rooms, giggling and clapping. Then she plopped on the bench long enough to plunk it out again, shouted, "CLAP FOR ME!" and did the lap again. This happened at least three times.

Merry, who also recently started piano lessons, approaches the instrument this way: seriously, with respect and a trembling sort of confidence that she will be able to read notes and some day run her hands over the keys like Keith Jarrett.

As I reflected over the phone to my mother, Merry's energy is like a stone, deep inside of herself. It's focused, private, intense, serious, still, contained. Elspeth's energy is like water, flowing like a mighty river that's skipped its banks, soaking everyone and everything in its path. Even when in her most intense concentration, when she's drawing, her energy is something wild to behold, and when Martin's dad walked over and looked over her drawings, he was astonished by their order and vision. "It looks like she's just scribbling over there!" he remarked, and indeed, Elspeth at work is a startling vision; she seems to tremble and jerk all over, her pen or crayon stabs the paper as if she's trying to kill it, and her hair falls into her eyes.

And Beatrix's energy? Maybe a brook? It's certainly not as wild as Elspeth's, though when she skips her nap, as she did today so we could drive down to an orchard to buy a couple bushels of Jonagolds, she's a force to be reckoned with. Here's a little piece of no-nap insanity; she stripped off her clothes, tore around the house, then froze in the hallway to hiss, "PISSHHHHH!" as she peed all over our wooden floor. I barely saved my slipper.

Martin's creaking up the stairs. Time to make lunches, I think. . .

2011-09-21T09:28:00.003-05:00

Apparently, my left shoe is very squeaky. Every time I walk up and down the hallway of the English department, it speaks: scrinch, scrinch.

I pack my class of twelve into a tiny conference room for workshops. It's very cozy and very warm. I feel as though I should bring candles in glass jars and pass out hand rolled cigarettes (only in this room should we inhale deeply and into rattling lungs). Somebody should brew black coffee in an old rusty percolator and we should sip it with deep grunts. It should slide like syrup over our tongues and we should have at least a few brown teeth and some deep wrinkles around our eyes. Somewhere out in the hallway someone should be playing the accordion, slowly and sadly.

Someone should read an essay that sounds like Hemingway. There should be bulls and red capes and women who speak little. Red bottles of wine atop trains and on tables in dirty cafe corners. A cat who sleeps all day on the bosom of a large, wrinkled woman, a woman whose fingers stink of garlic, whose eyes are full of rivers.

I wonder if I could book such a workshop room?

2011-09-19T20:39:00.002-05:00

I, the undersigned, promise in good faith to exclaim, "ZOUNDS!" as a matter of habit, starting twenty minutes after this troth is published.

Too, I will accompany said exclamation with an upraised fist and expression of genuine astonishment, thus convincing hearers of my absolute fidelity to said "ZOUNDS!" whether the occasion suit or whether it be of questionable timing.

Signed: Kimberly Long Cockroft
in the year of our Lord 2011

The Misfortune of Others: It Makes Me Laugh

2011-09-19T20:23:00.003-05:00

The rain, it's a poundin' down outside the windows. Sounds like there's a wall of water headed our way. I'm struggling against the soothing white noise, actually, because Martin's grading a stack of poems and I should be writing reading questions but I feel so alienated from my blog writing lately I thought I should come by for a visit. And the warmth of my slippers and the weight of the day easing into the comfort of evening tempts me to slip into an early sleep.

I just read a funny blog entry on "Days Under the Sycamore" (link below right) wherein my friend Sally and her family go for a lovely stroll up a ridge, enjoying the September evening sunlight gleaming on fresh-cut piles of grass waiting for the hay baler. It all sounds pretty bucolic until their son, Will, withdraws a stick from the earth and lets loose a mass of swarming bees. The family of five, covered with these buzzing horrors, tear down the hill, shrieking all the way, and the boys sprint the half-mile or so to the van (leaving their parents in the dust) where at least one of them has to be strapped in practically naked because he's covered in bee stings. Once they've recovered, Sally has to wonder cautiously back up the road, retrieving the clothing they had stripped off and flung asunder in their hasty retreat.

The whole story gave me quite a chuckle, even though it includes bodily injury to people I love.

Martin is half-asleep now and resorting to food to keep himself awake through the rest of the poems. Last night I tackled a mountain of prose, so I have less sympathy for his poetry. Oh blast. He brought back chips. I have sworn to eat better and now the bowl of chips is. . .within. . .my. . .reach. . . .

I may have to get myself some Fruity Kix to stave off temptation.

And now, to Huxley and Africa.

Happy evening to you all, and if anything really bad but not permanent happens to any of you, please let me know so I can laugh heartlessly at your expense. Thanks.

2011-09-15T20:42:00.004-05:00

Just an update to my wall obsession. Four things happened:

1. I drank tea

2. The sun came out and we went out and I commiserated with a couple root-bound house plants out in the clear, crisp air and then I freed them from their gloomy pots and introduced them to their new homes

3. My daughter, Elspeth, finally stopped talking back to me after every sentence that left my lips (she drew by herself for twenty minutes, a sure-fire cure for grumpiness)

4. I dropped my children with a couple warm people and attended a reading; listened to fiction from a talented college student in a vintage dress and poetry from a man whose craft and images blew me into another place entirely, where there are no walls that block the elements from me (it wasn't Martin; it was another man, Bob Randolph, who punctuated his poems with a little harmonica, guitar, and finally a pair of zennish cymbals)

So, basically, using Martin as my example,
I went from this

to this.

Take Down the Wall!

2011-09-15T12:46:00.004-05:00

It's the kind of grey day that makes you long for new, sparkling things. Right now I am longing for a view from my kitchen, which entails knocking a wall down, installing a header, and building an island in the space. Easy-peasy, right??? Right? Well, the contractor who gave me a quote a year ago has since moved to Delaware and I am a defeatist who took that as a sign that it's not the wall's time. Listen, honey, all I want is some natural light in the kitchen. I have one window now over the sink that looks to. . .my neighbor's wall. It's pretty.

My mother is a big proponent of signs, of things that "aren't meant to be." This sounds wishy-washy on paper but it's actually a pretty good way to live, most of the time, because then you can just let go of something and move on. My mother's belief in signs is rooted in faith; my belief in signs is rooted in far murkier territory. An inner exhaustion that is too weary for my years? Yes. An edge of cynicism that gives way to laziness? Perhaps. For instance, if I nail up a curtain rod crooked, I can almost convince myself that was the way it was meant to be, after all, and that I can learn a lesson from living with a little imperfection: relax, take a deep breath, and let go.

But this wall in particular has been informing my weak longings for years. Maybe it's because we spend so much time in the kitchen, or regularly pack the space with dozens of people (not to mention Martin's students twice a year). When I say "regularly," I mean, often all week long. We have a very open house, which is lovely, but it makes me wish our kitchen were a little more spacious.

But fast on my heels is Guilt. How dare I complain of a perfectly pleasant, functional space? In some parts of the world, my entire family would live in a room that size, plus my Grandma and Mother and Father and an uncle or two. And maybe the goat. I am not being snarky, I am chiding myself as I will so often do, for the rest of my life. And that's not a bad thing.

Still. . .that wall. I've wrapped it in psychology (ie., I have inner walls I need to take down; I feel trapped; yellow wallpaper stuff, etc.) to explain my obsession. I've wrapped it in politics (take down the walls that separate us, barriers of ideology, etc.), and I've surrendered to the conclusion, many times in the past six years, that this wall needs to stay where it is. It's a thick, plaster wall that has existed there for over a century.

Once I told a contractor that I'd trade him one of my children for the removal of my wall. I was half-joking. I also tried to give him all our kitchen cabinets in exchange but he didn't bite.

Anyone know anything about putting in headers?

2011-09-14T13:20:00.003-05:00

My sister recently e-mailed me a link to an article that should be dear to every Wordie's heart. It made me ashamed of my limited vocabulary, and also sad that I could not wrap my tongue comfortably around the word pusillanimous. Why is it our words generally get so much more vague when there are so many succinct words out there, if we can only claim and utilize them? Are we cowards, or just lazy?

Here it is; click on it: FWIW

Listening to Stories

2011-09-11T15:45:00.005-05:00

I've been memorializing Sept. 11 victims by listening to NPR's StoryCorps recordings. They are two-minute conversations or reflections, and it's amazing how much can be packed into two minutes. I've been sitting here listening as I watch a squirrel wrestle a walnut off our tree. I remember clearly where I was on the day itself, standing pregnant with Merry, looking at the footage on a classroom TV, realizing that my high school freshmen would never forget that day. At one point, someone suggested we turn off the TV, but it was important to watch, to be part of the tragedy. I looked outside to the lawn beneath a great pine, finding comfort in a squirrel, to whom the day was as sunny and normal as ever. Later I excused myself to call my mother back in Illinois, to make sure that my father, who was traveling that day, was okay. Deep down, I knew he hadn't been on the destroyed planes, but I wanted an excuse to hear my mother's voice.

It's easy to feel detached now from the tragedy that has been so wrapped in political agendas. But listening to the simple stories of victims and their loved ones has refocused me. Beverly Eckert's reflections on page two are particularly moving. Listen to them here: http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifNPR STORYCORPS: SEPT. 11.

At the end of the day. . .

2011-09-07T19:52:00.005-05:00

At the end of the day. . .There has to be a song out there that starts with that line. It sounds like a song from my childhood but I don't know which one or if it ever existed. Bea jumped into her first day of school with penache and confidence; when I dropped her off she touched my pants leg and then disappeared into a cluster of children, and when I picked her up she raised her chin in the plucky way she has and announced: "I didn't cry!" Later she explained that some kids cried, but she didn't, and then she sang the Eency Weency Spider for me.

And so it happened that for the first time in our family's history, three children were at school at the same time. So, too, were Martin and I at school. We even ate an early lunch together in the department's conference room and as I ate my pbj and peeled my banana, it did indeed feel like the long old days of school.

My writing is clunky today. I can hear it rattling out of me in fits and starts, like a car running out of gas. This morning in class we listened to NPR's Sounds of Summer Summary--which basically consists of quintessential summer sounds (clink of ice in a glass, a lawn mower, the whine of a mosquito, the cheers of a Little League game. . .). I asked the students to pick a sound and write about a memory it sparked for them. I picked the mosquito and sat down to write, but getting words down on the page was as awful and hard as wringing water out of a rock. Some days are like that, I guess.

I've been reading more lately, which is lovely and may account for the fact that my writing has partly dried up for a while. I find that when I am deeply in a story, I can't focus my mind and my imagination elsewhere. I have to finish the book, shake my head vigorously a few times, and refocus on another story--hopefully the one I will write when I finish rereading "Flame Trees of Thika." I don't know how many times I've read Elspeth Huxley's childhood memoir, but I am enjoying it this time as if I never encountered it before. I assigned the book for class and I am cramming the margins with pencil marks and underlining especially wonderful lines and I know I will never be able to read this particular copy again unless I erase all my marks. I intensely dislike reading books covered with another person's scribbles; it feels as if someone is reading over my shoulder. However, reading a book closely in order to teach it requires that I form a more dynamic relationship with the characters and the richness of the text.

Oh, my heavens. I just reread the paragraph above and hey--do you think I could run on more sentences than I just did?

Better stop while I'm ahead, people. Back to Elspeth (who is my daughter's namesake, of course), back to Kenya's colonial days with its charming, philandering English colonials who seem better than the horrible colonials who beat their servants. Back to Kikuyu myths, to pet chameleons, to coffee bushes.

Ninety and then Sixty. . .(we're moving in the right direction)

2011-09-05T15:05:00.003-05:00

The rain is dripping and plunking off the thick leaves of the Bird Tree (actually a young Black Walnut) outside the dining room window, and the smell of a chicken stewing fills the house. It's thirty degrees cooler today than it was on Saturday, when Martin, the girls and I swam through the soupy air down to the Monongahela River, where crowds of artists and families had gathered for the Arts Fest. Martin and I are in a band (Martin on guitar and vocals and me on vocals only plus the occasional egg shaker), "The Unreliable Sallys" and we had an hour long gig, which is much longer than usual. My eyelids were sweating and Amy, our lead singer and songwriter, was so warm she had to step away for breaks to mop her face. We sang some good Louisiana and Texas tunes, so the weather felt just right--bayou-like. The girls sat on a bench and behaved fairly well (Bea spent much of the gig on my hip) except when Elspeth shimmied down to sing in Martin's guitar mike and later hiked up her mother's dress to an unacceptable height. Some people dance and march around the stage; I chase children.

Oh, I love it when September feels like real Autumn. I feel like lighting candles, baking bread, stewing apples. I feel like rearranging furniture, packing the larder for winter, double checking the shelves for tea.

Friday Happy Hour: Now Less Time Away Than it Was Yesterday

2011-09-01T12:53:00.006-05:00

The first week of school lays you flat. Right this moment I am a fish that flipped for a good long while, eyes fixed in that fishy expressionless terror, scales gleaming in the late summer sunlight. . .now my gills barely move, I am breathing my last and reconciled.

All right, so that's a little dramatic. Still, there was a seed of weariness that I felt in my right shoe at the beginning of the week, but I've walked on regardless and the seed has blossomed into a tree; I have born fruit, big pears like the ones we caught Grassy Sam, our resident groundhog, feasting on yesterday. We just let him keep on, ridiculously satisfied that at least someone is harvesting our garden this fall!

What's up with the metaphors today? When I get tired like this, happily tired, actually--I lose the ability to think in Roman Numerals. I go mosaic and begin rambling.

*Beware*

Oh, and grandparents, the first-day-of-school photos are forthcoming. I promise!

I whipped up a quadruple batch of pumpkin bread and wrestled my numerous pattypan squash into a submissive curry soup before they could keep breeding in the corners of my kitchen. I have only two more to chop to pieces now and a hefty zucchini which is sitting by the cutting boards like a beaming green Buddha.

I think Bea is on the loose. One more day to Friday happy hour. Maybe I will even get to have a conversation with Martin--a real one--this weekend. One can hope for a brief cessation of wild activity. . .

Oh, and PS., my story, "Birds in Snow," was given an award of distinction from Midwest Literary Magazine. If you haven't read it, you can now by clicking on it down the page at right.

Happy Places

2011-08-31T12:14:00.003-05:00

My friend Tonya put a basketful of swiss chard in the washing machine to disastrous consequences. She swears the rinse cycle works splendidly with spinach. Apparently chard is of a more delicate constitution.

Tonya has a big, productive garden, and she is of good Mennonite stock which means she can never. . .stop. . .working. . .She tells me she's up to her ears in peaches and she's already canned enough beans to build a replica of the Empire State Building. Plus she works two mornings a week and educates her children at home by cyberschool. My question is: when does she sleep?

Did I mention she has a flock of chickens? And a penchant for personal, physical disaster? Since I've known her she has almost shot her eye out with a hunting rifle, stumbled backwards into a ravine that was hiding a nest of bees, and bashed herself countless times on countless objects.

Last evening, she was already doubled over with pain from a previous injury, but continued wildly chopping basil to more unfortunate consequences. . .the permanent loss of the tip of her thumb.

There are these miniature children's books that Merry used to like about sad bunnies (by Rosemary Wells, I think) who endure horrible things and get rescued by a Queen bunny named Janet who then takes them to the Bunny Planet so they can experience the day that should have been.

Tonya, let's go to the bunny planet.
Or to the shores of Orcas Island, on the placid cool waters of the Puget Sound. Only the sound of a paddle in water, mountains rising around you, the hope of a seal.
Ah. . . .

A Letter to, (but not exclusively), My Life Writing Students

2011-08-28T17:00:00.004-05:00

My father has always been a patient man. Kids could climb on his head, stick their fingers in his eyes, pull his hair and hear nothing more than a mild redirection. The times we children remember him agitated are fabled and few: the morning the wheel rolled off our car at an intersection, the afternoon I insisted on taking home a large, rusty kid-car from the friendly swap at the dump, and the night my 16-year old sister telephoned from a shady train station in the bowels of downtown Paris. . . .
Whether we recognize that our lives are interesting or not, each person is a walking fount of history, humor, grief, and loves. To you, your life and the lives of those you know best may seem wildly fascinating or dull as bricks--no matter. The trick is in the storytelling. I'm a miserable story-teller; I forget bits and pieces (and sometimes the largest, most important bits), I interrupt my plots to apologize for possible fallacy and lies, and I feel my audience slipping away from me, slowly, then quickly, looking over their shoulders to the refreshment table or pinching their children until they cry.

Okay, maybe it's not that bad. But even if, like me, you lack a bit of confidence in your oral skills, you can find a home, a place where you can wander at ease in diverse terrains of memory and imaginings and my favorite things: Words. There's a whole world to each word; they're heavy things, sometimes holy temples, sometimes so hot you can barely hold onto them. And each person is full of words, the stories of their lives and longing, the idiosyncrasies that make each person so perfectly peculiar and fascinating. An editor once said to me that he was unsure that I'd have enough stories or ideas to write a weekly newspaper column. I smiled--as long as I'm living among people, there are more stories than I will ever have time to write down.

Really, this could be a class named: Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Journalism. What story doesn’t find its start in the wrists of the writer, in her mind, history, and personality? Whether the setting in your compositions are as familiar as your own shoes or whether there’s only a kernel of familiarity in a character you create (that only you, and maybe one other person, knows), your writing will always flow up and out of you, and parts of you will cling to the words as they travel onto the page.

By this I do not mean that I want you to succumb to that annoying and facile task of navel-gazing. Rather, I’ll always recommend that you take the harder road. If writing is easy, if you think you’ve arrived, then you need to go to the beginning and start again. Bad writing bangs around in the writer, making echoes and embarrassing sounds. Good writing is like a shout: it originates with the writer, of course, but leaves immediately, travels far, and leaves the rest of us scratching our heads as to the source.

As writers have said for ages, you must be a good collector. Happy is the writer who keeps a journal in his pocket. Even scraps of paper, stuffed into an envelope, will do (but not for this class). You must sit quietly, learn to eavesdrop, learn to listen beyond mere words. Collect small things, such as the dip of a head, the crease of a mouth, unsaid things that bubble in silence. Don’t worry about their purpose; just write them down, or they will leave you. Maybe you've heard that we are sponges that absorb everything we need, but I do believe that's wrong--or just lazy. This is what I say to myself when I am desperate and undisciplined. Run, pursue, catch the details, and then take a pin and impale them to your notebook.

Never forget that you are many things beside a writer. Do not aim to be a writer alone, just as you would not plan to be just a parent or just an accountant or just a student. If you want to be terribly unhappy, work to be just a writer. Then, when you fail as a writer, which you will, then your identity will crumble as well. Gird yourself with many identities, interest yourself in diverse and wonderful things; remember to be surprised and let yourself wander into new houses and countries and shake the hands of many people. Drink tea with many people. Then you will be whomever you are first and also a writer.

You are in college. I know the miseries and joys of college, and chief among them was never being able to run away from myself. While this is a common malady, it seemed worse and more painful because I was a writer. I never experienced anything without tucking it away, sanding it down, ironing it into prose. Now, a busy mother of three, a writer but also a gardener, wife, reader, cook, friend, and still a child of my parents—this has not changed. What has changed is my attitude toward it; I relax and do not let this sense of never engaging fully bother me. Perhaps “engaging fully” as an adult is unattainable, unless you are hysterical, on drugs, or struck by pain. The older I grow, the more I forget about myself, but still carry around that writer-tendency to always be drafting experiences in my head even as I am experiencing them. (And I don't mean Face Book stuff, those pithy barks that we send into the darkness. I mean essays, stories, even novels). But I find that while I do not always remember things well naturally, I remember them when I write. Though I do not always perceive correctly, especially about myself, the fog clears when I write. Many writers start their memoirs just this way—searching for answers.

Clarity comes with many drafts and a whole lot of editing. Good memoir, good fiction, good poetry, makes connections. These connections between experiences, thoughts, flashbacks, dialogue, characters, and setting—they hold together a story like the studs of a building. You might purge yourself and even do some really great writing, but if there are no real connections, no structure, your composition will fall apart immediately, lack movement and strength, and you will, as I often have, feel a deep sense of discontentment when you reach the end. And if you know, deep down, that you’re not done writing, you can bet that your readers will know, too.

But that’s what workshop is for. Being a writer all alone with the computer glowing on your midnight face may make you feel powerful and confident (or it may make you feel the opposite), but isolation will rarely produce final drafts. Many is the time I have finished a story or poem and congratulated myself heartily on my talents, to show it to my in-house editor (whom you all probably know) to disastrous results. A few times I have really written something good the first time. Okay, maybe one time. Mostly, I have learned to buckle myself in for a long, long ride, for many drafts, for frustration and also a great deal of laughing when I realize just how bad my wonderful writing is. Many times I have shelved a story, thinking it was done, to realize a year later I must rewrite it again. Just relax. You have lots of time. You have endless energy. Writing is not the best thing that will ever happen in your life; it’s good, maybe you can’t live without it, but it’s not anything that should fill you with the fear of loss or failure. The best advice a writing professor once gave me was this: “You think you can’t write right now? Going through a rough spot? Frustrated? Good! That means you’re growing as a writer.”

To be in a room with people who have come together for a common purpose, to celebrate something they love—this is a good place to be. It’s a safe place, a place to grow without fear, a place to trust one another. I feel this deeply when I eat with others in my home, and a workshop class is just like this. We bring our dishes to the table; we eat slowly, thoughtfully, with appreciation. Of course, unlike the well-mannered people we are who would never complain about Aunt Martha’s bland stew, in workshop we make suggestions or ask sometimes uncomfortable questions. But nobody is afraid that their dish will get thrown in their faces; no one will leave empty.

Did you reach the end? Hurrah for you! Here's your circus, courtesy of my girls and their cousins:

2011-08-28T13:55:00.002-05:00

For reflections on back-to-school/Autumnal stress and the importance of slowing down to watch caterpillars, please click on the geranium at right to read my article this week.

Bottom Dwellers

2011-08-27T13:36:00.006-05:00

Check these guys out. I want to call the fish "A Mudsucker" or a "Dogfish" but I don't think either of those were right. My eight-year old nephew, Josiah, flipped over a barnacle-covered rock, swooped his hand down into the muck underneath, and fished (ha,ha) this fine fellow right out of his fearful floundering. (Ha,ha, and it's definitely not a flounder). Wait, wait, he perched on the edge of the rock. . .I'm trying hard but I my fishy puns are at an end. My public will be devastated.

He flounder, and then, sadly, he lobster. (I stole that line from an unknown source).

And who knew starfish could look like this? Actually, the creature below is not a starfish but a seastar. Look at all those legs. . .so much more amazing than the stock starfish I learned from preschool flipbooks.

They come in plummy purple, too.

I was walking among the tidal pools when I slipped on a mass of seaweed, flew in between two rocks, and grated my leg on a patch of barnacles. Following this event, I enjoyed a round of antibiotics, one tetanus shot, and many evenings of discomfort. The scabs have just fallen off, and my leg is pink and gorgeous. Nobody else whacked themselves. . .the children are like goats on the rocks, surefooted. If anyone can think of a better, more oceanic simile, I would be grateful.

Today I am once again with the children while Martin pays the piper at school. Why did I think going to Target (through construction traffic) was a wonderful idea? I have a massive bag of toilet paper but I'm not sure it was worth it. I threw the kitchen sponge at my middle daughter today after she smeared toothpaste on the wall. My zen is shot and I am becoming a bottom-dweller, a Mudsucker, a Dogfish. School starts in one and a half days. . .60 hours and 12 minutes, not that I'm counting. (Just kidding, I didn't really count--I just pulled that number out of midair.) There's some really great stuff under rocks, for the record, and it stays pretty cool and shadowy. Maybe you should crawl under one and join me.

Seattle Summer

2011-08-26T13:53:00.004-05:00

I thought I'd start with Seattle photos and move up the coast toward Canada. Look for: the Space Needle, the International Fountain, and the Rock n Roll museum. Should be a three out of three for all of you. :) The kids that are not mine are my niece(s) and nephew.

Saucing

2011-08-26T13:42:00.006-05:00

This morning I spent the hours with a couple of good women, saucing a mountain of garden tomatoes into deliciousness. There's nothing more soothing than a pot full of homegrown tomatoes, simmering slowly, or more glorious than a cutting board crowded with two-foot stalks of basil. I even love the smell of garlic that clings to my fingers and the sizzle of the red wine when I drown the onions and peppers.

Slow food. It makes fast friends. It makes the heart happy. It hinders the spinning of the crazy world just long enough for a good laugh.

Three heads of garlic, man. I mean, what's better than that? Makes me feel like a truly rich woman.

Hello Again

2011-08-25T09:31:00.004-05:00

Ooo. This is a little awkward. I've thought about you plenty of times over the last month, but I didn't write. I kept waiting for the right time. I had so much to share I didn't know where to begin or end, or--do you still remember me? I'm at the edge of the water; it's cold; my arms prickle with goosebumps. I'd better just jump in!

It's coooold in here.

After rain, the trees that have sprung up all over the hill gleam dark in the blank, white humidity that I will always associate with Pennsylvania summer. Insects are so loud that when Martin recorded a poem for the British literary magazine Anon the other evening, his voice was a stone at the bottom of a river of crickets' song. We had to shut all the windows.

Let me reach into the last busy week and pull a few things to show you: Elspeth's starfish, wrapped in tissue, perfectly intact even after a day in airports. Beatrix poised on the landing, riding her tricycle down our stairs. Elspeth boarding a big yellow bus for her first ride during kindergarten orientation. Martin swapping his yard clothes for a dress shirt and tie, heading off to work again. I, buried in books and papers, my eyes crossed in the effort of figuring grading percentages for a syllabus for the class I'll be teaching, "Life Writing." Merry at the edge of a circle of adults, her long limbs never still, not quite knowing where she belongs.

Last night, I just about finished my syllabus, and now I feel as if the world is opening up again. I feel as if I should throw myself a party. Martin's not quite in party mode yet.

Brr. It's a little chilly in here yet, though I'm stroking as fast as I can to build up the heat. I haven't written regularly in so long, my limbs are stiff.

I find myself thinking of Nancy all the time, tucking away tidbits to share with her or reminding myself to save a magazine to pass her way. It's strange to be back, walking up her front steps by the garden she watched carefully, planned at one point, picking out plants, digging holes, settling them into the ground. Her garden is still blooming, still producing fruit and vegetables. At one point as I fell asleep, I started, as if jerking to the surface of water, realizing afresh that she was gone, that her body was buried, under a tree, in a graveyard outside of town. Most of the time, though, the strangeness of her absence feels less profound than the presence of a new reality: her smiling face, her body moving as it often did through my house, settling at the kitchen table for tea--all so strong in my imagination it feels as if it must be true that she is still with us, that if I could only open the doors to what is truly real I would understand how she can be gone and here at the same time.

It can all be chalked up to wishful thinking, to love, to denial or the wanderings of hope. I realize too that I will always be partly the skeptic of my own faith, raising an eyebrow and shaking my head at my childlike imaginings. But I have lived so often in the world of my faith that it is almost more real than the shifting plates of this earth, vibrating in the air filled with cricket song, under my hands when I lift a plant from the soil, waiting for me in the morning when I step outside, in the far-off call of a bird or even in the ants that cover my kitchen counter in late summer. "The world is charged with the grandeur of God," Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, and at times I feel that charge so acutely I can believe in the unseen, believe in the eternal depths of a small stone or a lifted voice--believe it with every fiber of my material existence. At times. At times I feel a sort of murky sadness or dullness that is hard separate from my joy, and the older I grow, the more I realize that this is okay, and should not go away. I can be comfortable with this question, just as Rilke encourages, to live questions.

And. . .speaking of shifting plates of this earth, I experienced my first earthquake two days ago. . .sitting in a chair in the sun room, I felt a wave pass underneath me, as though someone had taken my chair from behind and tilted it first one way and then the other. I hushed to hear the sound of rattling or shaking, but there was nothing else. Martin was evacuated from his building for a half an hour, but I went on drinking tea in the bottom floor of our brick house, trusting that one little wave was the end. And so it was. We felt just part of the quake that brought down the National Cathedral's spires in DC, and many of us, including Merry and Elspeth, who were playing upstairs, didn't even notice.

Better get the water going for mac n cheese. Oh, one last thing: yesterday I looked outside through a morning rain, and there were the girls, with three good friends, huddled under a little lean-to of rugs, one pink umbrella titled toward the wind, their faces upturned like a little crop of wildflowers. I felt indescribably happy. Childhood should always be so sweet.

Snatched from an e-mail from Martin to his staff at the literary magazine back in PA

2011-08-12T16:56:00.003-05:00

Hello, Editorial Staff!

I'm writing you from a craftsman bungalow on an island just west of Victoria, Canada, in the shadow of the North Cascades and towering Mt. Baker. Yesterday I kayaked around a rocky point, water clear to depths of ten or more feet, seals bobbing their heads all around me. At one point, both a bald eagle and a sea plane flew over me at the same time.

This is part of why I haven't been as motivated as I should be to get things going for the fall.

Pittsburgh Airport Note

2011-08-07T04:18:00.002-05:00

It is 5:19. We're waiting with fairly subdued, sleepy people for our flight to Chicago. Martin's already eaten half of his sandwich and we still have 18 hours of travel stretching in front of us. But I feel as though we could fly to China and back without much trouble--so easy is it to fly without children!

Our time at home was marked by sorrow, grace, and an astounding outpouring of love. We saw all our dear friends, ate wonderful dinners full of healing humor and good food, stayed with friends who feel like family, who mourned and laughed a lot with us.

Nancy's funeral was extremely moving, led by several Orthodox priests who sang the liturgy in English. Her grave is under the shade of a big pine tree. The whole time I was back at home, moving through her house, walking down their familiar street, loving her children, I kept seeing her face, and her gentle blue eyes were laughing and loving, just as they so often were. I continue to mourn for her, and grief catches me throughout the day at different times. Nancy was so tender that her eyes would suddenly fill up with tears spontaneously when she was talking about her children or recounting a moving book she had read. Nancy knew loss intimately and turned that grief into a desire for compassion, a wonder for the world, and gentle, quiet spirit. I hope I can do the same.

The children are doing okay, wrapped up by the love our community, the intensity of the week, and the calm, peaceful presence of John, but they will need our love especially when everyone has gone home and the house is quiet. Then Nancy's absence will ring loudly and we will have come into that space and help to fill it.

We'll board soon, and at the end of this day, we'll be with family again in the San Juan Islands. Thank you to all our dear friends, and to our wonderful family for caring for our three daughters.

Seattle Airport Note

2011-08-04T13:04:00.002-05:00

We're in the Seattle airport, waiting to board a huge jet, a 737. It just came in from Tokyo, unloaded at the customs dock, and rolled on over here. A cluster of anxious people crowd the gateway, but Martin and I are still sitting, unconcerned, buried in our books. Such a luxury when I am used to travelling with children, all three lovely girls home with Grandma, splashing in the Puget Sound today.

A perfect, wonderful barrage of loving offers to pick us up at the airport in PA has arrived, and we feel so loved I almost teared up over my last Seattle Starbucks, at least for a few days until we are back. To go back to a place I know so well and not to see Nancy there seems terribly strange. But there's such a wall of love there, strong, wonderful in its solidity, that I am filled with peace and gratitude, and it puts me at peace. A community like ours, moving together, is so rare, and I feel enveloped in grace.

I am so grateful too for a family to leave the girls with, so happy that we did not have to drag all three girls from the ferry to the train, from the train through the airport.

Gotta go. We're really boarding now, even the relaxed, unconcerned people without kids.

Nancy

2011-08-02T22:31:00.002-05:00

I am sad to tell you all that our dear friend, Nancy, passed away today at three in the afternoon. She battled cancer for three years, and most of that time, she felt relatively little pain, which was a miracle, considering the nature of her illness. During a rapid decline, hospice was there to keep her comfortable and free from pain, and she was surrounded constantly by people who loved her. Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts; now, please turn them increasingly and faithfully to her three children and her husband, John.

Martin and I will fly back for the memorial service on Thursday, stay for a few days, and fly back to Seattle. In mid-August we will conclude our summer travels and settle back at home. I have felt so torn in the past week, knowing Nancy was so sick and I was so far away. I thought for a while I would be able to reach home in time to say goodbye to her in person, but her body's decline was astonishingly rapid. I was so grateful I was able to talk to her on the phone, to say goodbye and tell her I loved her.

Nancy and John were the first friends we met in Pennsylvania--they walked up our front steps with a plate of cookies and their children days after we moved in. She and I had many long, warm conversations; she often took care of me when I was miserable early in my third pregnancy; we could chat about gardens for hours, and I named her "Nancy Greenthumb" for her productive gardens and her love of all vegetables grown in good dirt.

Her mind was constantly alive and fertile, and not only did she care deeply about the education of her children, but she loved books and new ideas. She and I even audited one of Martin's writing classes together, and she also attended one of his summer writing classes with members of our community. I loved cooking vegetable curry for her and making her desserts with no sugar or fats (first she was vegan and then she was on a very restricted diet). She was gentle and kind to my children, she laughed often, and very near the end of her life, she was still walking about the neighborhood. I remember clearly watching her and her daughter walk away from my house, her daughter slipping her arm through her mother's.

Nancy helped me think about God in challenging and wonderful ways; she painted icons and understood incarnation in many ways; she loved her children and my children, and she was a woman I could call sister. I feel fortunate indeed to call Nancy my friend. I will celebrate her for the rest of my life.

Mixed up

2011-08-01T20:31:00.006-05:00

Now is the time of mixed-up things. I am in Washington, on a clear, cool evening. My sister, her husband, Martin and the children chat, clink silverware, laugh and raise their voices in a political discussion of some kind. Today was so brilliant that Mt. Rainer shone brightly on the horizon; we could even see Mt. Hood behind its peak.

Back at home, in her familiar green house with the garden full of tomatoes and the herb bed that I know so well, with its climbing rose by the porch--in a place where I often chatted on the steps with my dear friend, Nancy, after pushing the stroller down the road or parking and letting her daughter climb out--here in this house my friend Nancy talked to me on the phone today from her hospital bed, and told me, somewhat lightly and humorously, "I've got hospice!"

And I, in my mind, had all the things I wanted to tell her so clear, in paragraphs. But over the phone I was choked, emotional beyond my own expectation, full of sadness, and all that I wanted to say tumbled out. I am unclear as to how all this works, losing a friend I love. It is hard to be so far away. I am comforted that Nancy is surrounded by good people, her community and family; I was able to talk with her though it was over the phone when I long to be with her and touch her arm, hand, lean over and give her a hug.

Mostly I am comforted by the knowledge that God is with her, beyond my own understanding, full in her, speaking in voices that flow through her like warm, comforting waters. When she can't hear her own family, she will hear God, and the voice will be sweet, as familiar as her own breath, the arms of her mother, the singing of her children. God will never leave her alone, nor will God leave her family alone, and this I hold to even in my deepest sadness.

Then there is waking and sleeping and laughing and crying for the rest of us, and that is good, too, though under it all these days, flows always a current of loss, a sense that something that should not have occurred happens now in spite of our longing, and in this brokenness God is there, too.

2011-07-26T16:12:00.001-05:00

Beatrix, running on mountains overlooking Missoula, Montana
Photo snapped by Elspeth

2011-07-25T21:17:00.005-05:00

I just finished a small mountain of spanikopita (did I spell that right? I'd check but dinner is imminent) and a glass of Riesling. We are waiting for dinner to brown sufficiently; today I bought two fabulous salwar kameez (one ridiculously pink) from a local and splendidly stocked thrift store. I wonder where I might wear these in our little southwestern PA town? Perhaps at the local grocery with the farming and coal mining clientle (mixed with neighbors I know): me in my sequins and poofy pink pants, selecting corn on the cob. I think dinner parties are in order.

I miss home but I am enjoying myself immensely. Not reading as much as I should. Today I began rereading "Woman Warrior" for a class I'll teach in the fall.

Ah, I hear my mother clinking silverware, which means my time at this keyboard is limited. For more complete thoughts on home, a glimpse into our travels in the south, and a bit of sentimentality, read my O-R column from last week by clicking on the geranium at right.

And in personal news: rejections continue but silver linings include an award of distinction from Midwest Literary Magazine for my story, "Birds in Snow" and an upcoming publication in the children's magazine, "Ladybug." Hurrah. Children's stories are such lovely fun.

Summer Tomato Girl

2011-07-25T13:30:00.001-05:00

Taken by godmother Kara
Missoula Farmer's Market
Elspeth with luscious yellow tomato

It was a very bad day. . .

2011-07-24T19:19:00.003-05:00

We're back in Edmonds, Washington, on a warm day so clear you can see the craggy, snow-capped peaks of Mt. Baker. The Puget Sound reaches sparkling to the foot of the Olympic mountains. We spent the day sitting on driftwood, watching the children wading deeper and deeper into the cold water and eating tart cherries from my sister's garden.

Now we're back in my parent's lovely little apartment, enjoying the breeze through the open door. Martin's doing the Sunday crossword, my Dad is snoozing with the Economist open and limp on his lap, and Merry's eating chips and chatting up a storm with my mother, who is making tea.

Mom just told us a funny little story about my sister's youngest little girl, Eliora, who is three. On a trip to Germany recently to visit her other grandparents, she surprised my sister when, late into the flight, she looked up into my sister's face, and said, "Let me tell you something. When we land, the plane will break into a hundred little pieces."

"Why would you think that?" my sister asked.

"Because," Eliora explained calmly, "The plane has no wheels."

"Yes, it does," Heather reassured her. "They'll come down soon, with a big thumping sound."

"No." Eliora extracted the safety information from the seat pocket. "The plane has no wheels and when we land, it will break into a hundred little pieces. See?"

Heather perused the safety pamphlet and Eliora was right: in every picture depicting the plane, there were no wheels. Apparently Eliora had been studying this pamphlet a good part of the long flight and had come serenely to the conclusion that it would crash when it hit the tarmac.

"Let me tell you a story," Eliora said. "Once there was a family who went on a plane. The plane flew and flew and then it landed and broke into a hundred pieces. The family landed in the mud. It was a very bad day."

Thankfully, Eliora's research, though thorough, did not yield the conclusion she believed it would, and Heather and the children landed safe and sound in Germany. And in the end, it was a very good day.

sentimental postcard from missoula

2011-07-22T23:44:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting in bed beside Martin, who is hunched over a Richard Russo book. Behind me a cool breeze moves through the window; beside me, two cups of chamomile tea on a trunk. A kanga covers the trunk, on which three African violets reach their fuzzy green leaves toward the light from the lamp. On the opposite wall, a row of wraps and scarves.

The children finally sleep, the dryer knocks and clicks, and Chopin plays eternally. My head echoes with the voices of dear friends who deeply rooted in my being: Kara, my constant friend since our childhood in Kenya, who is now content in love with a good man; Lindsay and Tim and their children, who we have laughed with now for eleven years since that time when Martin and I were first making our way as young newlyweds and then as new parents. Tim and Lindsay are godparents to Merry; we are godparents to their son, Corin, and Kara is Elspeth's godmother. I even got to spend time with Kara's brother, Nathaniel, who used to be a gangly little brother and now is a strapping, handsome man with a beard. And we were able to meet Tim and Lindsay's precious and beautiful new adopted daughter, Birdie, who just arrived with them from Ethiopia.

And all in Missoula, happiest of cities with its broad rivers and sweeping paths, mountains and enormous sky.

And here I close, because I have too much to write, about wonderful adventures in Washington and so many faces and voices that I wrap in joy, joy that is steeped in gratitude and marked by sadness that these precious ones must often be far away.

And too I remember the love and joy that waits for me in so many places: here; with my family in Washington; with Martin's family in Texas; at home in Pennsylvania. I am blessed with this embarrassment of love, for places contoured and mapped by the voices and open hands of all these dear ones.

Elvis waz here

2011-06-25T22:11:00.002-05:00

We're in Mississippi, tucked up in bed in a lovely old hotel built on the edge of the bayou. We may be sleeping in the same room Elvis slept in--who knows? I do know that he frequented this hotel from 1951-1957. He had a girlfriend down in Biloxi who "was a knockout in her black suit" as the hotel manager told me (she worked here in the 50's). Elvis played gigs at the same restaurant where we ate a pile of fried seafood tonight.

The hotel was built with mob money and appears in PBS specials about Al Capone. It seems to have quieted down quite a bit now, and the fabulous old pool that looks like it's right out of a Poirot set was filled with laughing children this afternoon.

We visited downtown Ocean Springs and explored an art museum full of pieces by a man named Walter Anderson. Some of his watercolors had been damaged in Katrina. Martin talked to his cousin about the hurricane, which was even more devastating than anything we could have imagined up in the east where we watched the coverage on TV. He has a scar on his arm from a flying piece of roof--he ducked out to try to move his truck and the air was full of debris, like mattresses. His friend actually floated for hours and then swam about a mile to reach his mother's house, where, three days later, he died from water contamination--and Martin's cousin says these stories are common. He describes it as seeming like the end of the world.

Martin, his sister and husband, and I wandered around a neighborhood this afternoon looking for Martin's cousin's old house, and we noticed that the streets, so shaded in Martin's memory, were flooded with hot sunlight; and then we noted the roofs of the houses were all new and the trees were almost all small. Evidence of Katrina is everywhere, not in debris or mess, but in small attentions, like the single red line drawn on the wall of the seafood restaurant we ate at the first evening we were here: Katrina, a red pen had noted, about eight feet up the wall.

Well, the children have fallen asleep, and I'm rather tired myself from swimming and walking and visiting, so I may follow. It's wonderful to be in such a different, fascinating, and beautiful part of the US with such good people. Maybe I'll dream of Elvis tonight.

2011-06-18T22:43:00.004-05:00

at the beach.
sitting in bed,
tea at our elbows.
the wind just blew over a rocker on the porch.
several rounds of rummy with my brother and his girlfriend.
brother's rummy name: Mr. Beardsley
martin's rummy name: Mr. Braveray
two days of driving in the blue subaru
three girls
two dvd players (I hate to admit it but it is true)
endless snack bags
a quick but beautiful visit to my auntie and uncle
and their whimsical garden
one stop at Superwalmart--two carts of groceries,
three girls, my mom and I, crammed in the blue Subaru
coasting over the causeway
blue blue blue water, white foam, two pelicans
beatrix running down the sand chanting:
we're at the beach! we're at the beach!

Someday We'll Find the Rainbow Connection

2011-06-15T19:53:00.005-05:00

Darkness is falling and Kenny Loggins is singing.

You probably have one of two reactions to Kenny Loggins (not classic, but after he went through his new agey transformation). It's probably a reaction similar to your intense hatred or melting love for the music of Neil Diamond. The girls seem to be calmed by his kid's album. Playing now: a cover of the Willy Wonka song, "Pure Imagination."

Somebody stop me--I'm just blathering on. This is probably because the real me is completely distracted and rather wound up with leaving the house and garden and packing up for the summer. Doubtlessly the summer away will be enchanting and lovely, but the process of leaving is not as much fun, especially when you come from genetic stock that makes you feel that everything must be neat and clean before you leave (just in case:
a. you are tired when you come home (given);
b. you never come home and you don't want the people cleaning out your house to be grossed out;
c. the house just feels happier that way.

I'm still mourning the fact that I will not be able to mulch the rest of garden before I leave after spending endless days weeding. How the wicked weeds will thrive as soon as they see me drive away! And the rabbits seem to be attacking the vegetables--they're even munching the zucchini vine, for heaven's sakes.

Currently Kenny (in a duet with Amy Grant, of all people) is crooning the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Pooh Corner." I know this pains some of you acutely. Ooo. Mellow guitar solo. (Children laughing in background?) It's good stuff.

Schedule for summer is as follows: Drive to beach, NC. Drive to Mississippi, then to Texas. Drive all the way home. Repack and shake head over garden for one day. Fly out to WA the next morning. Drive to MT. Drive back to WA. Return home.

Books I must read/reread: Essays, ed. by Annie Dillard; Flame Trees of Thika, Elspeth Huxley; Woman Warrior, M. H. Kingston. Columns to write from interviews I've already recorded: plenty.

Indeed, we are incredibly lucky folks to be able to visit our wonderful family scattered over the country. Please come and pick the raspberries, those of you who live close. And the flowers. Is it Kenny singing "The Rainbow Connection" that makes me sentimental for you good folk? We'll miss you.

2011-06-14T14:17:00.004-05:00

I just got a story, "Birds in Snow" published at Midwest Literary Magazine. You can read the entire issue, including my story, for free at their site by clicking HERE. Then click on "Magazines" for the May 2011 issue.

It's a funny little story, almost a fairy tale, that I wrote after I inexplicably found a child's tooth on one of our area rugs--and nobody would claim it. It remains an unsolved mystery.

Martin and I had the funniest time ever editing this story, especially when he started play-acting the part of the old man to make a point (apparently, a description I'd written was actually ridiculous when performed). That man makes me bust a gut, especially when he's ripping one of my stories apart :).

Who needs GPS?

2011-06-12T20:53:00.003-05:00

My mother and I, in the car with three girls. No map. A gut feeling about each turn we should take, according to our recognition of familiar landmarks. Goal: drive from Pittsburgh to Painesville, OH. Expected time for trip: Three scant hours each way, six hours total over two days.

Add all of the above together and you get: several wrong turns, almost a tank and half of gas, and a minimum of nine hours on the road.

Count them. Nine hours.

But the girls were pleasant and happy and even excited every time we told them to get back into the car and buckle up. And the garden was even more beautiful when we finally pulled into the driveway, stained with weariness and smelling like Bea's pee, but giddy with an overdose of silly.

And now we're drinking tea and warming up the TV for some good down time.

O wise bird guru, show us frustrated plebians the way

2011-06-10T14:10:00.005-05:00

Beatrix just pushed one button and erased my entire blog post. I feel downcast, especially since I'd paused twice to stand up and help the children with various tasks. Good deeds are not always rewarded. There you have it. Solomon was right all along.

Once, in the dark ages of computers before "Autosave," I was typing an enormous research paper for a college class when the electricity blinked. In one terrible instant my entire paper vanished. All those polished, carefully chosen words--gone. I shook with anger, tears streamed down my face, and I cried the entire time I rewrote the paper. Determined, not broken, but deeply grieved.

Now why would Blogger set things up so that one mislaid finger from a three-year-old whom you've just convinced NOT to sit in your lap so you can read a Richard Scarry book yet again would ruin everything? That's what happens when you're all full of your own rhetoric instead of vacuuming the house before your mother comes to visit.

Well, here's the summary of my last blog post, just the bare bones with no embellishment:
It was hot and humid
It rained
I slept
Martin's in Louisville with thousands of penniless English professionals grading GREs and sampling bourbon
I wish I could sample bourbon
I forget the names of things (such as the Bird Tree and the black and yellow birds)

I think that's it.

O, wow. A beautifully patterned, solitary robin stands calmly on the low porch roof, his black beak in the air. Occasionally he turns his head as if to assess the change in the air after the storm. No feathers ruffle; he is strangely unaffected by the screams of the girls and the rumbling of Bea's ride-on bus as she rattles through the dining room. He looks wise beyond worms or nests, a bird guru. Maybe I'll ask him a question. He will show me the way.

Sweat and Mulch in Your Eyes

2011-06-08T20:51:00.004-05:00

Our living room clock permanently reads a quarter to twelve, but I know that it's ten o'clock here at Wazoo Farm, and the night is still and warm. If I could listen over the steady whir of the window fans, I'd hear the sound of rocks clunking and the soft murmur of the radio. Now, the cough of the pick-up's motor--Martin must be packing up for the night.

It's been a terribly hot day, but the garden called us nonetheless. Martin finished his rock wall, and it is beautiful. I planted six rough-leaved verbena and four large yew bushes, which will grow into a lush, brightly-berried hedge between the main garden and the children's garden. As far as evergreens go, the yew is pretty, with finely textured frondy leaves. They've been sitting in our garden ever since we bought them, and I knew the bell tolled tonight as the heat became less intense. The bell tolled for me, because Martin was so wiped out by then that he stopped transplanting trees, stripped down to his boxers, and sat in the kiddie pool with Bea.

The hapless trees Martin began digging up are three ornamental plums, which flower so promisingly in the spring but which we realized would someday grow behemoth and swallow our garden with their glossy purple leaves. I looked up from fighting the earth with the spade to see Martin, entire plum tree shouldered like a fishing pole, striding down the side yard toward our "prettyish bit of wilderness" down at the foot of the hill, where we plant trees that shake our confidence for one reason or the other. (This last paragraph I give to my sister and her husband. Heather and Luke, there are two things here that will please you immensely. What are they?)

Planting in our garden means swearing at the layers of clay, which your shovel hits almost immediately. You must import significantly better soil from elsewhere and then heavily layer newspaper and mulch so roots don't bake like pots in a kiln.

I have almost decimated the load of undyed mulch in the bed of the pick-up truck; now I have to stand at the edge of the bed, shovel in my hands like I'm holding a canoe paddle, and shove the mulch to the end of the bed so I can fill a gargantuan bucket with the utility shovel. Then I carry the load up paths littered with project bits and pieces to my final destination, where I dump it with unbecoming grunts.

Needless to say, it's good exercise. I too joined the girls in the pool today, where I sat as water spread up my shorts, chatting with Merry about our holiday plans this summer and reminiscing of past summers. Elspeth picked us a basket of strawberries and we were very mellow together. And besides the fact that a critter (maybe Grassy Sam the Groundhog?) topped two more tomatoes last night, we're pretty content with garden. Too bad we won't be around to enjoy it; we leave for our sojourns soon. Come by, then, and cut yourself a bouquet of herbs, roses, and yarrow. And the zinnias are up, too.

Spring Harvest

2011-06-06T20:50:00.004-05:00

Spring Harvest
photo arranged and captured by Elspeth (subjects picked and eaten by artist)

Merry, after a long afternoon weeding
(I took this one)

Advanced June Cooling System(photo by Elspeth)

Spring Journals

2011-06-03T20:03:00.003-05:00

Martin just finished stacking enormous rocks near posts that will become our short, side garden fence. These rocks are HUGE, each one won with sweat and a great deal of grunting last summer when he and my brother-in-law heaved them out of a state forest (they had a permit, of course, likely the only 'rock-picking' permit issued last year).

After a day of newspapering and mulching beds, I was covered with a fine layer of black dust, which I finally and gratefully washed down the drain. Showers must be one of life's finest pleasures. And now I am listening to a maddening fly and trying to build up enough gumption to fit in a little more work tonight--this time on the computer on a story that was just accepted provided I revise a few things. I would have had it done by now if it weren't for the long beautiful sunny days.

Here are a pictures of a few journals I've received this spring with my work printed inside them. The links to the websites are below right under "My Scribblings."

No. Gumption.

Up the Garden Path

2011-06-02T19:33:00.008-05:00

This morning was so cool that we wrapped ourselves in sweaters for tea, but it quickly warmed. In fact it was so lovely that the girls inaugurated a new blow-up pool. I hope the raccoons don't rip this one to shreds. If weeds are the frat boys of the plant world, raccoons are the irresponsible partiers of the animal world. Once I gazed through the dusty window of a handsome historical house downtown; the old pocket doors were punctured, as if a person had been thrown through one, the rooms were in chaos, and all that was once elegant was destroyed. "Football players lived there," Martin muttered in my ear. Not all college football players are destructive, irresponsible maniacs, and maybe not all raccoons are raccoonish, but I have my doubts. Something about their eyes makes me suspicious, as well as the fact that their idea of a really great time is to nose through diapers and rotten meat in our trash. Not ideal weekend guests.

Martin has been incredibly, happily busy on his latest project: creating a brick and stone path leading into our garden. While I have endured the chaos that is our children as he feels each rock with his hands, making lifelong friends before he eases it into place in the puzzle of sand and gravel, I am not bitter. Rather, I am delighted with his progress and his prowess at this art. . .

Above, see the area before the path, in early spring a couple years ago.

First we had to move a garden bed; then the really hard work began. From a heap of clay, which Martin dug out to level, he lined it, lay gravel, then sand, and then finally began painstakingly tapping in each brick, equipped with his handy level. He is a perfectionist. One day I'll show you a "path" I've made, and you can compare.

The proud goof-ball with his path, completed late last night. I'm afraid the lighting this morning was incredibly harsh, but we'll get a better photo soon. I love the steps!

Leveling is no simple job in our part of Pennsylvania. For instance, I meant to take this photo straight, but our garden slopes up, up and away!

Some of my favorite flowers are blooming--roses, so unashamed to be bright and splendid, the intricately patterned heads of yarrow, maybe my all-time favorite.

Yellow yarrow and white yarrow. . .

No, like a jittery Mennonite forced to hold a creed just for a second, I don't want to exclude anything. The hedge of russian sage, reliably flood our front path with tiny blue flowers, is a close second. They're growing strong and will flower soon. And look at our peach tree. We'll have our first peaches this summer!

Alliums. Blue flax. Feverfew. Cosmos. How could I forget zinnias, the swirling skirts of summer? Lavender.

And look how the rose has climbed right over our porch wall. You can climb over the porch wall, too, and take tea. Or be conventional and come through the front gate. Karibou, welcome.

You don't even have to wear a hat.

Hot Days and Poetry

2011-06-01T10:10:00.006-05:00

Remember how I waxed eloquent about open windows and breezes and the scent of peonies? Well, folks, that was before the weather turned ballistic on us. August temperatures and as humid as Pennsylvania can be.

I went out last night and when I returned the house felt like an oven, so I finally pulled down the attic stairs and installed all the fans. Usually late May and early June peak in the high 70's. This season, we're peaking in the low 90's. Yes, it's a little warm 'round these hills. I waffle between loving the garden and wishing it were a little bug I could flick off my arm. It would help if it were a bit more in control, less glutted by mid-May rains followed by the scorching temperatures that made the weeds think they were at a frat party. They're having a grand old time.

I kept about a dozen tomatoes alive--brought them back from the brink, no less-by watering, and then this morning I found them all topped by deer. Arg.

Enough of that. Martin's just had some wonderful poetry published at Connotation Press. A few of my all-time favorites appear. . .Photograph, Arizona, 1914 begins:

The well is dry, and the women
who once drew water are stones
silent as those who lived before them

A few months ago, Martin and I were charged by a friend of ours to write poems sparked by the image of a woman at a well. I dove right into the task, writing multiple poems of varying uneveness over a course of weeks. Martin waited until the last minute, sat down and wrote that jewel of a poem, with simple, spare language, rounded images, and startling, haunting lines. . .I almost shiver when I read this poem. Sometimes you get lucky. Martin gets lucky quite a bit; it must have something to do with more than luck.

Then there's "A Day of Mourning." Reading this poem is like hiking through a desert and finding bleached bones laid in the sand in a perfect pattern.

Finally, get your groove on by reading "Proposal." I LOVE this poem--Martin read it some months ago at a local poetry reading and I enjoyed it even more out loud, so read it to yourself, but not silently. Even better, read it to someone you love. The last lines are magnificent:

For these investments we must have a proliferation
of pockets: pockets for money,
for marbles and mice and other small things.
We all must give a little.

Please note the borrowed "mice and other small things," which Martin scooped up from this blog. "Marbles and mice and other small things--" who doesn't want a "proliferation of pockets" for all such lovely things?

Read Martin's poetry by clicking HERE, and visiting CONNOTATION PRESS. If you find some gibberish at the top, just scroll down until you find a hilarious James Bondish photo of Martin, and then enjoy his poems!

I'm in the garden. . . .

2011-05-29T21:42:00.004-05:00

Where have I been? In the garden, drinking mojitos, unloading small mountains of topsoil, planting seeds, handing out popsicles to children, in the garden. . . .well, you get the idea. Gardening weather wreaks havoc on writing, as do the company of good people, cold minty mixed drinks, good food(as at our dear friends' house tonight) and hot days when the LAST thing you want to do is sit inside and stare at a computer screen. Winter is far better for writing.

I must fill you in soon about the small flood in our bathroom as well as the inauspicious preparation for our gig/poetry reading the other night. All to do with inexplicable things children do.

Two things. Sal took this photo of our little preschool graduate. Look at that snaggletoothed beauty. Hopefully she will not be missing any front teeth in any of her future graduations.

And happy birthday, Josiah. Many happy returns, dear one.

Racquetball and Peonies

2011-05-25T21:19:00.006-05:00

Beside me, Martin studies racquetball techniques. I glance over once and a while and catch phrases like "Crotch Serve," "Blast Rule," and dense labyrinthine passages about three-foot lines.

The day was hot as summer but now the ceiling fan is picking up enough cool night air to make me feel like finding a blanket. We have no air-conditioning, and while one week every summer typically makes us feel like crawling on our hands and knees, we prefer our open windows to the blast of cold air. We can hear a distant train, smell the sweetness of the peonies. Oh, those peonies are so sweet--I prefer their delicate, thin smell to lilacs, which are so heady they almost make you blush. Peonies make me think of old women dressed in aprons, opening their arms to grandchildren. I wonder if such a woman planted these same bare roots one autumn, dreaming of these huge ruffled white blooms. Lilacs and peonies both seem like they should always be heirloom plants, and it's magnificent to think of the first people who lived in this house in the early 1900's sitting in this front room, pausing to close their eyes and breathe in the scent of these peonies under the window.

I wonder what they would think of our huge rambling garden in their side lot. Apparently some of the first owners allowed horses to run about and later, when times were rough and food scarce, sheep were allowed to graze on our grass, sheep that would supply the college nearby with food, or milk. . . I'm unclear what they actually provided. Maybe some really warm sweaters.

Martin's watching racquetball now, young guys in baggy athletic shorts furiously slapping a little rubber ball around. I like racquetball, but I prefer a more leisurely game, serves you can actually return while chatting or hooting to your opponent.

Why is the audience booing so vehemently? Never mind. I'm going to shut my computer, shut my eyes, and enjoy the peonies and a cup of tea. Peace.

Owl Creek Farm

2011-05-23T21:20:00.007-05:00

A big thank you to Eric Coffman, who took these lovely photos.
This past weekend, we considered standing on a hill top waiting for the heavens to part like curtains. We thought about waiting for the fire to pour from the sky. But we opted to spend two beautiful days at Owl Creek Farm instead.

Elspeth spent her entire weekend at the pond, perched at the end of the pier, where she caught a whole slimy pile of gorgeous salamanders. At the most, she said two words to me all weekend. Martin and I hollered out our tent mesh to make sure the two older girls were in their sleeping bags in the other tent; we spent an interminable night with Bea, who had a rocky transition to tent-sleeping, to say the least. As Martin said, it was like trying to share a tent with a bobcat. At another low point, I heard him mutter, LEGION! That might have been one of the times when she was flinging herself at the tent walls, clawing at her stomach and howling. No, I am not joking. The other twenty-two campers in the hay field would testify that I am telling the truth.
The next morning, she popped out of her sleeping bag, pointed at the mesh roof of the tent, and announced, "It's morning time! Look! The sun!" And she was perky and happy to be riding on the farm golf cart with Torin and the other kids.

We walked to an enchanting little waterfall and drank tea on the porch of our hostess' historical cabin. After the endless rain, the days shimmered.

And today, home again, I finally tackled the garden with a will. When I close my eyes, weeds and gnarled grass dance on the backs of my eyelids. Welcome, sun.