Bits and P

Martin is off to Boston. I dropped him off at the little local airport, where he caught the shuttle to Pittsburgh, where he will catch the plane to Boston and to our good friend, Kurt. They're doing some kind of wild, groovy art installation with actors and 'soundscapes' and poems. . .and I'm not entirely sure what else.

Here the light is creamy over our redbuds' furry branches, which are so laden this year they look like hot-pink boas.

I'm rather tired so I am having trouble writing properly. The two little ones are in the bath giving themselves bubble beards. Merry is reading her homework out loud. Tonight we had a special picnic with friends at the park, which meant I packed the whole pot of lentil soup which we dipped into and then hunched over our steaming bowls while the rain beat against our backs. The girls scrambled down every now and then to go and dance in the drops and by the time we left, Bea was covered in wet grass.

This morning when I looked outside to find Martin and Merry at the bus-stop corner, I noticed there was a dark fog filling half of the sky. Then I heard the wail of firetruck sirens. When I dropped off recycling this morning, the street was blocked and rivers of water streamed down the street. Then as we drove by the building this afternoon on the way to drop Martin at the shuttle, the windows of the apartment building, whose residents were all elderly, gaped at us; the whole place had been gutted by flames, except for one window in the bottom left, where pristine white lace curtains still hung. Our town with its old buildings seems prone to bad fires. Merry tells me that she heard a couple people died in this one. I am very sorry.

Oh, sigh, as my Dad used to say when there was little left to be said.

Well, late tonight my parents come in and the party can start. I have two more discs of The Gilmore Girls (my mother and I gorge on this series, much to the chagrin of Martin--but he's not here!) and a box of Crunch 'n Munch. And I DID clean the house--fairly well, I might add. There's still horse manure in the driveway, but what do they expect from Wazoo Farm?

Yelps from the bathroom. Better go!

lots of lilac walks

Before I begin my rant, I must say: Hail to the Quaking Aspen, which Martin and I both agree is the most perfect of all trees.

And I must add that apparently around our neighborhood, there is a pack of boys who spend their days in heated speculation about what is in our shed. What do YOU think is in our spectacular shed?

If I were to tell, the boys would most likely be terribly disappointed, so I will not breathe a word of what DWELLS in our shed. Hoo-haa-haa-haa.

The garden is already growing out of control. There are a couple weeks before the end of classes when everything gets rather hairy: the lawn grows unbelievably long, much to the chagrin of our neat neighbors (and this year the lawn mower is broken), the house gets a worn, fuzzy appearance; the children are lucky if their hair is brushed and their toenails clipped. Martin and I begin substituting high-fives or groans for real conversation, and we begin eating from troughs instead of from plates with silverware. Instead of "Pass the buTTer please," we grunt or slam the table for emphasis. No need to articulate words, no need in these packed days with not enough moments for civilized behavior.

Of course our "packed days" are relatively calm compared to the days of city-dwellers with multiple jobs; but we are who we are, and our house is always filled with people who are family though not related to us by blood, and therefore our lives are busy in different ways--suppers need cooking for more than our own mouths; Merry's homework needs to be done though I am the only parent present two nights this week; the beds need weeding, our children and other people's children need love, the house is in great need of a vacuum, I need to edit and send off a story; and Martin has hit the inevitable crunch-time at the end of school.

Meanwhile the lilacs are blooming. It is an absolutely perfect day outside--65 degrees and sunny, with no wind. I feel pressed by this perfection to throw off the responsibilities of being an adult who lives in this messy house and go for walks with Bea, who longs for the outdoors. And so I shall.
Hoo-haa-haa-haa!

Especially Nice April

Ho! To the Especially Nice April I yell HO, there! Fine job this year!


There are people I wish to see in the yellow rocking chair, sipping a cup of our lovely Kenyan tea and smelling the lilacs. Hody you, there, Kara! Come and sit a spell!

The tulips, lipstick-red. HO to the tulips! To the fading daffs! To the gorgeous finery of April!

Karibou to spring.

Today at Naptime

Elspeth has a colossal cough--Martin and I had the same one and it lasted for two months. And then one day it slipped away. So I guess we were hoping the same thing would happen for Elspeth. I finally gave in today and told Martin to call and set up an appointment at the doctor's, so Elspeth is going in on Monday and still I'm hoping it will up, pack, and leave before dawn so we won't have to give her rounds of antibiotics.

We've been pinning poor Beatrix down now twice daily for the past week for eye drops. I have no idea where she picked up her nasty eye infection, but giving drops to a two-year old is no picnic. We have to clamp every appendage down while Martin tries to pry her eyelids open as she screams. She's a slick little seal under our fingers and even slicker when she's covered in eye drops that haven't made it into her eyes. Childhood is full of illnesses and I thank God for every illness that has an end in health. One walk through our neighborhood graveyard--a favorite of ours for good walks since it is on a ridge over town--and I am always struck by the number of tiny gravestones. I have heard that in some places with historically low child-survival rates, parents didn't even bother naming their children until they were a certain age. Certainly this can't be true!

Elspeth was heaving with another cough in the middle of her sleep this afternoon when her eyes suddenly popped open and she reached two arms around my neck and said, "I love you!" Finally I eased her into sleep by wrapping myself around her little body so her arms and legs could relax and she finally surrendered; the coughing subsided a bit; and she is sleeping.

Outside the sky is darkening to coal-black, the leaves are celery-green, and Merry is home, so I'd better sign off.

Elspeth Strikes Again

Guess who got her grubby little fingers on the camera again?

Even though the handling of sparse and expensive technology by four-year olds is frowned upon at Wazoo Farm, I can't help but enjoy Elspeth's peculiar way of seeing the world.
The dog is not our dog but belongs to my brother, Kenton, and his long-time partner, Leah. The dog is not an angel-dog, despite Elspeth's rendering here. It is very cute, though.


A reward to the person who can figure out what these two objects are. A reward only if you have not been to our house--otherwise only a little peck on the cheek. (I don't know what that makes the reward. Something unconnected to kissing. A slice of birthday cake--I've been baking tons of them lately).

Angel-dog's tail.

Our terribly ugly ceiling fan in our library--necessary in the summers here, since we don't have central air in our old house, but man, nothing is as ugly as a ceiling fan, unless maybe it's a big, heavy light fixture from the 70's. Note I unscrewed all the light bulbs. I loathe overhead light. In the living room I hid the light switch behind an Indian wall hanging. I feel immediately depressed when someone finds it and switches those sad bulbs on. When overhead light-lovers DO find the switch in the library, they get so excited, and then they flip the switch and nothing happens. I feign silly confusion, perhaps, but inside I am all triumph. Saved from bad lighting again!

My mother brought this fern and her ficus tree to me from Baltimore before she and my father took off to Washington State. They left behind my father's big TV so they could bring me plants. Priorities: absolutely straight. I am a terrible mother to all my plants, but I do love them so. I suppose this applies sometimes to my children as well. None have died on my watch though occasionally they are dreadfully in need of watering.

This one is my favorite: tulip stems against the blue of the entryway wall.

odd

Merry started doing this funny thing lately--while the younger two girls are in the bath she sits on the closed toilet, or drags my wicker bedroom chair onto the bathroom rug and cracks open an old decorating magazine. Then she proceeds to flip through and read every single advertisement she can. Occasionally she reads the advertisement copy out loud and snorts. "What does that mean?" she asks, after reading a statement about beauty supplies or hair cream or medicine. When Merry reads the copy in her measured style, every syllable pronounced meticulously in the way of an early reader, the messages we skim over and absorb so thoughtlessly suddenly sound utterly ridiculous.

The other day Merry nabbed Elspeth's new "slate" as she calls it--(her write-and-wipe board), and began scrawling advertisements. It turned into a sort of impromptu performance art. Seeing Merry, who is absolutely baffled but amused by the messages in the ads, beside the bare words of the advertisements unaccompanied by images, was striking. At least Martin and I found it so.

Do you recognize any of the copy?


PS. Here's a little party I'm going to throw for myself: I've had two acceptances from literary journals this week, so that now I have forthcoming work in three different genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Thanks to those of you who silently and not-so-silently root for me--and I know you're there, because when I checked my 'sitemeter' today, I found there's been almost 27,000 visits to Wazoo Farm's blog since I began it. So thanks for sharing my life in this way.

Forsythia Fern Cockroft

As a child I dreamed of Eugene Field's Sugarplum Tree ("tis a marvel of great renown," after all) in the Garden of Shut-Eye Town. As an old 32-year old, I have shaken off the Sugarplum Tree in favor of Forsythia, Plums, Crabapples, Eastern Redbuds. The real blossoms of spring are always so unbelievably wonderful that I am woozy with delight. Because of the Big Snow, spring is especially glorious here, the blooms various and rich. The forsythia is a million golden exclamation marks along our side yard, where Martin planted ten more bushes.

In a moment of prenatal fancy, I wanted to name our smallest child Beatrix Fern Forsythia Cockroft, since she was born at the height of the forsythia two years ago, but Martin told me I would be sorry. Would I have been sorry? I don't think so. Maybe she would have been. So I've been slipping in the name Forsythia where I can. I even have a LL Bean catalog that comes to Forsythia Cockroft, and it is a name that should have been, my dears.

Beatrix turned two on the same day I turned thirty years more than she; so we celebrated all week with good people--here, handsome Roberto. Beatrix has learned what candles are for; she pointed to hers and said, "I want Happy-Day!" She celebrated by running around outside for days, coming indoors only to get somewhat clean and to sleep.Friend Sally baked me a fantastic meringue torte and took my children most of the day. What a gal, Sal. Since I thought I was thirty-two all of last year, I don't feel much older.

Only now with three delights, I feel full of energy when I am not exhausted, ready for excitement when I am not content to fall asleep at 10:30, and generally happier than could possibly be deserved.

Baths

I took a bath with the two younger girls tonight. Highlights included Beatrix grabbing the support bar with both hands and jumping up and down on my stomach, Elspeth dumping cold water on me, and Beatrix making surprise lunges for num-nums. Gone are the days when a bath meant a magazine and sweat pouring blissfully from every pore, candles flickering and a cup of herbal tea. No more, no more.

I insist on my baths without the Crayola dye tablet (see above) and without excessive amounts of Dora the Explorer bubbles. The girls are pretty flexible--they seem to be perfectly content with luke-warm to cool water. Maybe it's my Finnish heritage, but I like to look as close to a lobster as possible when I emerge from the bath. So I kept on warming the water until the little ones were sitting on the ceramic edge of the tub and grinning at me. "Sit down!" I said for the hundredth time, "In the bath!" Elspeth looked a little sheepish: "It's a little warm," she said, and then I realized that indeed the steam was rising from the surface. I remembered years ago climbing into my mother's bath after she was out. The water should have cooled by then, but it never had. I sat there, head bowed, overwhelmed by the heat and not enjoying myself at all. What was up with my mom? How could she stand it?

But I had no idea how relatively peaceful our bath actually was until something happened. Let me give you a little background: we used to have a mouse problem at our house. It was horrible--the little creatures ate through everything they could get their paws on, including the Christmas chocolate stashed in my bedroom closet. But then we noticed the mice were gone, and it was not due to our persistent efforts to trap them--no, it was because several enormous cats of indeterminate breed had taken over our garden. Occasionally I watch them from the windows as they follow their habitual routes down our garden paths, but they never approach any of us, preferring instead to streak off down the hill to who-knows-where.

I did not know that the cats had also taken over our roof, but even if I had, I still would have been surprised when, during a quiet moment of splashing, the ceiling above us ruptured, light dappled the crowns of our heads, and a humongous ginger cat, claws outstretched, wailing, crashed down into the bathtub. You can imagine what happened then; I grabbed both children and streaked out of the bathroom, water pooling beneath us, slammed our pocket door shut, and listened to the racket in our bathroom while the girls shrieked--Elspeth because she was scared, and Bea because she loves animals. "Meow-meow!" she announced, pointing to the door. "He like Bath?"

And now I know that the three pieces of advice my mother, the hot-bath-taker, always gave me were right on the money. When trouble or stress bothers you, you have choices:

a. take a hot bath
b. drink a cup of hot tea
c. go to bed and sleep
or d: all three.

I am endlessly and ridiculously grateful for any of the three. They all produce a long sigh of oh-finally-this-is-SO-good. I never, ever take them for granted.

I'm not sure the hot bath does the trick with two little imps crawling on your back, jumping in and out of the tub and poking your stomach fat, but it won't be long until only one of us will fit in the bath at a time. So a tub of three is a happy thing, too. A tub of three WITH a cat is NOT a happy thing, neither for us or for the cat, who finally tumbled out of the bathroom and down our stairs, straight out the open door Martin held for him. The girls and I watched from our perch on a desk, and after the cat was gone we turned to the wrecked bathroom, singing a hymn of thanks that it is April and the first after all, and the cat had never actually come except in the world of fools.

Ha! Thus spoke my good friend, Zarathustra. Ha!

A Spring Song

During a lengthy pre-nap spell (as I tried forever to sing Elspeth to sleep) I wrote this spring song--for Elspeth, but of course it's for all three girls:

If I could be any flower,
Maybe I’d be a hyacinth,
Blooming purple in the sunshine,
In the garden in the springtime.

Maybe I’d be a daffodil,
With my bonnet all of yellow,
Peering up at the sunshine,
In the garden in the springtime.

Maybe I’d be a sunflower,
Rising up to meet the morning,
With my petals all of yellow,
In the garden in the summertime.

Maybe I’d be honeysuckle,
Tasting sweet to the children.
Rambling over the swing set,
In the garden in the summertime.

But it doesn’t really matter,
As long as I can be a flower,
Coming up next to Elspeth,
In the garden in the springtime.

Yes, I could be a little earthworm,
Making tunnels in the wet earth.
Coming up to meet Elspeth,
In the garden in the springtime.

But it doesn’t really matter,
As long as I can be a flower,
Coming up next to you, dear,
In the garden in the springtime.

Good Night this Monday

I do truly love this time of night, when the sweet-smelling girls with their silky hair are tucked in and quiet. Finally. Oh I love them and I love it when they are sleeping at the end of the day.

More rain today so no trees planted. More rain! Sigh. Bea was such a pepper-pot; she demands excitement at every turn and when none is offered she throws a grandiose fit, beating her high-chair tray or her head or whatever is available with her little powerful hand. She has started to say an enormous amount of words, which is both good and bad, as those of you with prattling offspring can testify to. She is head-over-heels in love with my friend Sally and her family and talks about them incessantly, even in knock-knock jokes. Sally is the kind of kindness that makes you want to scratch your head in wonder; she's got really good snacks; she picks up Bea and her heart still melts when Bea makes her sad face. I, on the other hand, who see many, many sad faces a day from this girlie accompanied by a keening wail at the injustice of her world--I am no longer moved. So Bea finds solace with Saeey-- Saeey, as she says, as often as possible.

I love this prayer poem of Rilke's.* It starts with these lines:

I am, you anxious one.

Don't you sense me, ready to break
into being at your touch?
My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings.

If you have not picked up Rilke's Book of Hours, do so immediately, in this world that is young and rainy again, in these days of swelling buds and daffodils and deepening grass.

thanks to my dear friend Kara for this pic of Merry from last year--or was it the year before?

Tomorrow I have a group at my house, so I've burned two dozen berry muffins in preparation. It's the least I can do, really!

And I'm off to bed. Love to those of you who are lonely tonight, and to all of you, I wish you a seamless slip from your reading or your worries into the peace of sleep.

_____
*From Rilke's Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (Riverhead Books, 1996).

Baby Trees in Green Plastic Bags

There are so many things I should be doing rather than sketching our sweet row of baby trees on Paintbrush, which has to be the Donkey Kong of computer graphic programs. It is my way of procrastinating this cold spring morning. The girls are off with Martin at an Easter Egg hunt. I stayed behind under the auspices of cleaning house but I have yet to clear away our breakfast dishes. Cleaning House is terribly boring, only rewarding for a few moments before everybody piles back in and slops it again. It can definitely wait.

The world is so green again! The forsythia bush at the bottom of our hill is in its first flush of gold and the daffodils are about to ruffle out. Our ten new trees this year wait patiently in their green plastic bags and burlap to join our family: redbuds, an American sycamore to replace our sad, split Big Snow tree, one dwarf pear for the children's garden, a crabapple, and three dark-leaf ornamental plums for the inside of the side garden. I love trees more than animals and desire them far above puppies or kitties or even the soft downy ducklings running around in the black tub at Agway. Trees ask so little of us and give so much; they are endlessly graceful and patient; they don't scramble up on my lap and lick my face and most of them will outlive my petty and enormous troubles and joys. . . .and I can love them all for 14.99 a piece. Can't beat that!

I really must face the breakfast dishes so I can go on unfettered with my Saturday morning life. I do believe last night was our last freezing night for a while. Martin reports that the microgreens are up in the pump garden, hundreds and hundreds of tiny leaflets that will, in a matter of weeks, fill our salad bowls. So first, the crumby plates and coffee dregs--next, the whole green thrumming world!

Detatching and Humble Pie

I wrote a short story set in Kenya that I made myself return to--I didn't feel like finishing it and I didn't feel any particular emotional attachment to it. Turns out that this is a good sign for me.

It's in the editing process now but it's the first story Martin has ever been 'blown away' by, if he could ever be described that way. I was so ambivalent about it, too--while I naturally jump to a first person narrator, for this story I went with a more objective, omniscient pov--and it was a good stretching exercise for me.

Of course I know you're never supposed to expect good writing out of extreme emotion, so I try not to write about anything too volatile unless I'm just venting. But I am unused to feeling quite so detached from a story. The more I edit the thing the more attached I get to it.

I try to apply the same detachment to the kapows of rejection letters, too, and I do keep my humor high. Most of the time I am very successful in that endeavor though occasionally I bow my head in a sort of melodramatic melancholy: O WOE IS ME. . . I WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO BEANS. . . .I STINK WORSE THAN GYM SOCKS. Etc.

Today I am going to be a guest speaker in a Publications Class at the University. This is my chance to bake up a big stinking humble pie so I can serve everyone a slice. These are my themes: Balancing writing with life, Rejection, Corresponding with Editors, Rejection, Juggling, Rejection, Chocolate, Rejection, Proposals, Rejection, Submissions, Rejection, Cover Letters, and--oh, yes, did I mention REJECTION?

Of course I have had some successes, and whole heaps of "almosts" and "we like you--but--" These are like tiny sprinkles of sugar sparkling on top of the enormous humble pie. This is how I will cap my talk, by cutting the pie into large slices and sliding them across the table to the students. "Eat hearty," I'll say with a wink and a guffaw.

Short Fiction

Today I've been working on some short fiction experiments and I'm enjoying that form so much. Some journals take only 500 or less words and others will take pieces with up to 1000 words. It's such a rewarding exercise--I love boundaries that push me to write better, to choose words carefully.

And then I get on this blog and try not to be too sloppy.

The sky is darkening outside. In about five minutes I will see the bus drive up and flash its lights as Merry climbs off--she always waits for just a moment and then she shoots down the road, backpack bobbing behind, all the way down our greening side yard, and through our gate where she slows down, giving me enough time to rush down the stairs to welcome her. In winter she'd pause at the bottom of the porch steps to stuff as much snow as possible into her mouth, furtively because I don't like them eating too much snow. I'd stand there in the shadows of the hallway, watching her shovel mittenfulls past her lips.

Our yearly ten trees are leaning against the shed, waiting for a dry, warmish day--only one fruit this year as we have as many as we can handle.

Oh, there's Merry now, turning a little twirl by the fire hydrant, so I'd better hurry!

Chickadees

A dear friend of mine who is going through a very hard time right now told me about a chickadee who sings to her every morning. (The very sad rendering above, scribbled on Paintbrush, is for her with love.)

I've been thinking about the chickadee, about the way it perches outside my friend's room and awakens her to a new morning with its repetitive, insistent call.

So I looked it up and listened to it here and felt as though I was in my own garden. How many bird calls I hear every day, especially in spring time--a whole chorus of avian voices that form the background of my seeing and movement outside.

This lent I keep on coming around corners and hearing bird calls. In winter I followed the birds, bright feathers of hope and promises of spring, and now that spring is here I delight in the absolute noise they make outside. I'm tempted to write that the bird songs are full of joy and gladness, but I don't really think that's true. A bird sings the way she sings because she is a specific type of bird. Of course, in the case of the chickadee, there are aggressive calls and mating calls but the chickadee still sings in a chickadee's voice, not a blue-jay's voice or a robin's voice. A chickadee is perfectly content being a chickadee.

This lent I have been reminded by bird calls and other voices to be content to be who I am. I wish this were as simple for me as it is for the chickadee. Most of us have to struggle to find our voices in the first place, and when we finally do it is hard to sing our calls contentedly and loudly all the time. It is easiest for me to sing when others are appreciating my voice, but it is hardest to sing when I feel slighted or alone, and it is near impossible to sing when my voice sounds ugly or ordinary.

The other day at our Mennonite Church I came into the little room filled with four-year-olds and I was in a bit of a huff. Why did I have to be here with kids when I am with kids all week? I thought. Why doesn't anyone else volunteer to do this job? Do they think that because I chose to be with my girls more or less full-time that I love being with kids more than anything else? Well, they are completely deluded. Etc. You get the drift.

I was rather surprised and encouraged when the four-year olds seemed to love the story I was telling--Samuel, almost asleep, has to push back his covers and plod down the hallway to ask Eli again and again why in the world he keeps calling him out of his bed. They ate it up, especially the part at the end where Samuel sits up in his covers and says, "Here I am! I'm listening!"

In the end I was shaken by the story myself. Here I was, in that warm room with three four-year-olds who were hanging on the words of the story, and I was so full of complaints and noise that I couldn't listen myself.

And now I've got my metaphors crossed. So I'm supposed to be still and listen and also sing like a maniac in my own voice, whether others are irritated or happy or bored or could care less when they hear it. Or maybe I listen to receive the grace and direction to sing like a chickadee.

It all has something to do with my daily life, which is sometimes misunderstood and brushed over by professionals, though it is as much based on my own choices as their lives are. Here's the other thing I realize as I flip through journal after journal of stories and poems: my voice is my own voice. It does not change whether or not I am rejected or accepted by editors. It has, I hope, with practice and discomfort, become stronger, but it is still particularly mine, and I have it for a reason, and I have to keep on keeping on.

Through the years I have found that it is a grave mistake to find my sense of worth from any one source, whether that be from parents, my spouse, my children, editors, colleagues, or friends. I must not look to others to solely define whether I am worthy my singing is any good. My mother always said, "Never apologize for your voice before you sing," which proves to be one of the best pieces of advice she ever gave me. A chickadee is a chickadee, designed especially to sing like a chickadee. A chickadee has innate worth because it is a chickadee, and that's it.

So that's been my Lenten lesson this year, and I have almost made myself nauseous with this entry; it so borders on being didactic I can hardly keep typing. I hate lessons. I suppose it is good to think on them occasionally though not so often that we become unbearable, and that is one reason why I love fiction and poetry and not devotional books.

I had a dream the other night that I was standing in the back of our church singing at the top of my lungs. And my voice as I let it sail up out of my lungs felt like freedom; it felt like I was standing on the edge of a pier with a salty wind full in my face. When I'm not plodding through the morass of a story but I'm near a peak, I get the same feeling: this sense that I'm wide open. Maybe it is the same for birds in spring, diving into trees like crazy things and spanning their wings and waking people with their loud voices.