Daddy's Garden

This month, if you flip open the covers of the national children's magazine, Ladybug, you'll find a story called "Daddy's Garden" about a gentle Daddy who finds a snake in the family garden.  A girl named Merry narrates the story, and there are three more characters--Elspeth, her little sister, the baby, and Mommy, who tends to be a bit cautious around animals.

Coincidence?  Happily, no.  Though I've seen my work published many times in other venues, receiving my copy of Ladybug was, by far, the most satisfying and rewarding.

Here are a few of the photos that accompanied the first draft of the story, which I wrote as a birthday gift for Martin many years ago (check out Martin's long locks).  You can visit Ladybug's website by clicking HERE, though you won't be able to see the gorgeous illustrations (the Daddy character is especially handsome) by talented artist Betsy Wallin (visit her website HERE) unless you buy the magazine.  I had no idea what illustrations would accompany my text, but when I opened the magazine (breath held) I was ecstatic to see seven beautiful watercolors.

Bea is listening to the soundtrack of "Cars" once again, for the fortieth time this week. You think I'm joking. All I want to say to you people is: I hear life is a highway. Though the option has not appealed to me since college, I'm beginning to want to drive it all night long. Yeah!

Last night I cut my own hair. My regular hairdresser is out of town for a while and I couldn't stand my shagginess anymore. So I stood in front of the mirror and snipped away. Things turned out pretty well, considering the piles of hair that began accumulating all over the house; I'd see myself in the mirror and realized I'd missed a bit. Martin tidied up the back since I had no way of knowing how it might look. The last time Martin cut my hair, right after Merry was born, he concluded my 'do by shaving a wedge into the back of my 'bob' which later morphed into such a short hair cut at the hairdressers ("Just trying to get it even, she said, as she brought out the buzzy clipper things) that a nice old lady at the grocery store called me "sir" until I turned around. Poor lady--she seemed awfully thrown and sorry for her mistake. At this point my distressed mother took me in hand and made me promise I'd never go so short again.

Don't worry, Mom, my hair is still right around my shoulders. My days of crazy driving--impulsive flattening of the accelerator--are gone, and no matter what my brainwashed mind is telling me, I still don't want to drive all night long. A little quiet drive in the hills, maybe, or better yet, a brisk walk around the block.

Bea just sauntered in with my mother's ridiculously bright-rimmed reading glasses. There's no telling where that girl is headed.

Oh, it's back again--Bea has learned the buttons on the stereo. Hey, if you're going my way, I wanna drive it all night long. I'm beginning to see, too, that there was a distance between you and I. . .

Bea, blithely to her friend Ethan today, in response to his fear of the Abominable Snowman:

"Snowmonster? I like him. It's no problem."

(Of course she pronounced it, 'ploblem.' And she waved her hand as if she and snowmonsters are well acquainted and on tea-drinking terms). Then they embarked on a serious discussion about dinosaures being 'stinct.

*

Tonight she sat on my lap and said, "You know a boy in my class said a funny thing. He said, "When I grow up, I'm going to become a little boy." Isn't that funny?" And she laughed and laughed.

It seemed really funny at the time.

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.

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

"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. . . .

Question

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. . . .

Energies

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. . .

At the end of the day. . .

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.

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

Owl Creek Farm

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.

Today I pulled out a thick manila envelope with two copies of Louisville Review's latest issue. And my poem "Juniper Tree" was inside! I'll include a link once the site is updated.

Check out the seven boys (one is taking the photo), out at a Pittsburgh Pirates game. Around five, they stood in our driveway, chatting like college freshmen with their bright faces and excitement quivering in every muscle. Finally I said, "Go!" and they piled into the silver minivan, limbs hunched and folded up next to each other, and grinned.

The available mothers stayed behind, drank mixed drinks of questionable quality (I hate to follow a recipe), ate pizza and chocolate, and watched the children spread out over Wazoo Farm during the first clear, sunny evening in a cow's year. Foam noodle fights and all kinds of mischief occurred, including some that landed Bea in the kitchen sink for a bath and Elspeth in bed.

And Merry carried out her electoral process, in which Lily was announced president by vote, with Asher as vice-president until Lily moves, when Asher will assume the presidency. It was all very civilized; the children sat cross-legged in a ring on the lawn by the blue shed and listened to campaign speeches and then marked their ballots. I wondered at the possibility of a coup, but Merry had everything well under control.

And now I must go tackle the downstairs before sitting on the couch, watching junk TV, and folding laundry. It's a glamorous life but someone has to live it. . . .I've barely had time to think about my short story, "Empress Chicken" lately, but then again, perhaps that's a good thing, since I think I may have killed it. It may be dead, and you know what they say about dead things over time: they begin to STINK.

Happy Mother's Day

Three reasons I get to celebrate Mother's Day. Here they are, in all their quirky glory.

That blue glow on either side of the path are wildflowers called Blue-Eyed Marys.


All these photos were taken at Enlow Fork, the beautiful place we went hiking a week ago; my column last week described our meandering trip there and then the incredibe richness of this place. I wish my own mother and Martin's mother could join us for a hike, to celebrate all our happinesses. Here is a trillium and some Blue-eyed Marys for you.


Happy Mother's Day, you lovely ones, our sisters and our mothers, our dear friends and all who mother us and our children. Much love.

Easter Girls: An unusually long display of photos without any poem at all

Easter afternoon, PA Cockroft style. I tried for a photo of the three of them, really and truly, but it was disastrous--so silly I couldn't post any of them.





I know it's just a glut of photos of the girls, but our family lives far, far away. Here's compensating! The lilacs, by the way, are simply intoxicating right now. . .
Currently, Beatrix is yelling from her crib: "Shake your body! Shake your BODAY!" She's apparently having a bit of trouble falling asleep.

for Kara, on her thirty-third birthday

My dear Kara, childhood friend, soulmate and delight of my heart,
I just wrote you a poem for your birthday, and if that's not enough
here are two of your nieces, including your godchild, offering you
a perfect daffodil, plucked in early spring in your honor.

Cleveland Pear on an April Evening

Tonight we stopped the car,
opened the windows, drew in breath
at the world of white lace
cut through by ebony bark.
With the windows down
it was all as real as we'd hoped.

and one more. . .

To the Day

This is how I spent my thirtieth birthday:

I'd prefer to remember it as one of the more intense celebrations I've had, and hope to heaven that nobody I know is planning anything similar for me this birthday.
*
Thirty-three years ago to the day, I started existing on this earth:

According to my mother, I was a funny-looking baby. But then again, so was the child who shares my birthday:

Here she is, catching some wind on the Edmonds Ferry in Washington State.

Check out that hair, dudes. No product required.

Three years ago to the day, Beatrix made her way down the tunnel and plopped into the midwife's arms.
I've often thought, This child is just too good to be true. But she is true, and it's her birthday.

I hope she is given as much happiness in her next thirty years as I have experienced in mine. She is blessed by all who love her, and to you, her family and community, I am deeply grateful.

It's Real

Remember Spring?

How the crocus, like a sun bursting on your tongue, shocked you into seeing again?

When robins fought you for earthworms as you sank your hands into mud,

And the sun, warmer than bathwater, collected in your socks and you flung off your shoes

in the sudden rain, and the rain like mothers singing, stirred you to dance.

Eggshell white day; a blackbird at the top of a poplar on the hill, a robin with velvet belly in the bird tree, ticking his sharp head into the pale sky, jabbering a song I can't hear over the roar of the heater. Inside the house is grey but today it feels good, intimate, and peaceful. Maybe it's the Weepies singing from our stereo: "All this beauty, might have to close your eyes. . .we travelled all night, we drank the ocean dry, watched the sunrise." They're trying to persuade me that every day is ice-cream and chocolate cake. Okay, I believe it.

The girls have hidden fifty acorn tops around the house, and now I must go find them, tiny bits of childhood they've tucked in bookcases and kitchen shelves and behind couch cushions. They're lying on the floor, eating apples and chewing with their mouths open. They are reminding me every twenty seconds, "We can't wait any longer. Come look now." Yes. I embrace my duty.

Monstas are my fwends

Here's Bea, during a rare trip to Banana Republic, finding friends among the headless. She cozied up to the expressionless but well-dressed man, above, looked up at his neck adoringly and said, "Hi, Uncle Noah!" When we showed the photo to Uncle Noah, he pointed out that he does not wear flannel shirts. I think it's interesting that he commented on the attire of the guy instead of the fact that the guy doesn't have a head. Bea also enjoyed holding the hands of the women, whom she did not name (they're dressed better than I ever am, so no wonder).
Late last night, after viewing an independent film ("The Baxter," so quirky and really fun), Martin and I sat up even later pillow-talking about Bea. Oh, she's a funny kid these days.

She'll be three in a couple weeks, but with two older sisters, she thinks she's bigger than that. She loves her independence, and whether it's redressing herself several times in footie pjs, tearing around outside with the older kids, holding the egg beaters or removing something from a high shelf, she likes to announce, "See. I a grownup." Here she is, confidently tackling the crooked house at the Children's Museum in Pittsburgh, shortly before she went up again by herself and panicked at the top of the tunnel-slide. I had to go and retrieve her and felt nauseous for a while afterward. That crooked house makes me want to barf every time.

Among other things, Bea's been trying to convince herself not to be afraid of monsters. A week ago, my mother and I lingered at the supper table, but Bea was done and ready to retrieve something--probably more footie pyjamas--from upstairs in her room. But it was dim and there was nobody else upstairs.

"You can do it," we told her, and she stamped off with a little swagger, which is her independent walk. We heard her footsteps stop at the bottom of the stairs, and then she came back again.

"There are no monsters in this house," she announced, and thus reassured, she turned around and walked back toward the stairs. Back she came. "I not scared," she said, extending her hand and waving it in the air as if we were concerned. The same thing happened, and she was back again, gesturing at us and glancing off toward the corner of the room. "I a grownup!" she said finally, and then she was off again--this time she bravely made it all the way into the murky upstairs all by herself.

Last night, right before bed, she told Martin, "There are no monsters in this house." She paused and thought about it some more. "Monsters are my fwends," she said, and went on to explain that there were two mommy monsters with baby monsters whom (I guess) live in our house with us, named Cali and Cooloo.

I hope they're not hungry tonight, because I'm just planning enough dinner for five. That's not to say any of you aren't welcome to drop by, assuming you eat a bit less than monsters.

At the Eisenstat's Farm

Bea wasn't too sure about the goat kids, how they wanted to nuzzle, untie shoelaces, and taste buttons. There's our friend Mike Eisenstat, my mom, Bea, and a kid.
My mom and I provided lots of giddy, girly laughter, which just got more shrill when I found that a large butterscotch cat had jumped into the Subaru and trapped herself. She leapt into the closed windows, first to the left, then to the right, until I lifted the hatch and she tore down the dirt driveway like a bat out of hell.
When we went to see the clutch of hens, I kept feeling a phantom goat tugging at the cuff of my jeans. Who knows what psychological damage the cat incurred.

I really could write volumes, but I've already written the story of Toboggan Farm, and you can read it this Sunday in the O-R. Just click on the white geranium at right.