Up the Garden Path

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

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. . . .

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

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

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.

Hail, Heather!

Well, Heather my sister,

Remember, in Bangladesh (and then in the half-dozen other places we grew up), when the sky would begin to darken, and you'd say, with your eyes half-full of hope and half-full of a wild light, "I think it's going to hail!"

Well, I wish you would have been here, sister mine, for I just witnessed the most impressive hail storm known to my own memory. Of course, the one in Bangladesh would have been even more dramatic with its tennis size balls, but I can't remember it well, if at all. I'm sitting in the sunroom, looking out on the garden, which seems to be covered in snow--but it's not. Thunder still rumbles across the hills and lightning stitches the white sky, though the storm seems to be retreating.

I was out in the garden for the first time in a while (we've had days upon days of rain and it's all mud and too wet to fool with the soil, though it's a good time to weed), and I was enjoying some quiet time whipping a bed into shape. I didn't even mind being scratched by a rose bramble, nor the fact that my shoes were deep in mud. . .

Ah! Did I say the storm was retreating? I think that was the eye, the calm before the next onslaught. Thunder just crashed so near and loudly I can feel it reverberating in my chest.

Anyway--I sensed the sky was darkening, and I heard low grumbles, but I was so engrossed I just ignored it until rain started to fall, and by the time I was settled on the porch, the drops were so huge I began to wonder if they were actually rain or not.

Inside, Bea and her friend, E, were still fast asleep, and they slept through the racket of grape-sized ice hitting the metal roof of the sunroom and ricocheting off the windowsills. Our table outside was covered in piles of ice balls; it swept down the driveway among all our mud and debris. I so wish you had been here to sit down and have tea with while we watched it all. It was such a good show.

Can you spy the yellow cat? She scrambled like a crazy thing until she finally reached the calm of the old truck's underside, where she slunk until the storm was over.

Can you see her hind legs and tail? She may be there, still. . . .

Flooding downtown; ankle-deep water; the creek is about to foam over its banks. Glad to live on a hill!

Wish you were here,

Kimby

Concerned Citizen, Age 9

Merry, our oldest, became distraught when she heard about the governor's budget cuts to education. They are distressing--the budget was cut by 50% and the money was reallocated to prisons and to huge incentives for corporations--many of which, by the way, are bleeding our counties dry of their natural resources and not paying any taxes. There's talk of laying off teachers, closing schools, cutting kindergarten, increasing class sizes, slashing benefits like free lunches for kids. Pennsylvania's future, especially for the large percentage of children from less privileged backgrounds, looks bleaker.

We hadn't talked to Merry about the budget cuts, but she found out about them at school and during the week that followed, she became more and more convicted that she should do something. So she wrote this letter, without any help from us. I helped her correct spelling and punctuation errors, and she wrote a final draft, sealed and addressed the envelope, and sent it to our governor. (To read the letter, click on the photo to make it a bit easier on the eyes).

"Do you think he'll read it?" she asked.

"I hope so."

"Well, he should," she said staunchly. Merry, I think he should, too.

Sunday Night Musing

After a day accomplishing many things, it was wonderful to rest my chin in my hands in the silence that settles over the house when all three girls are in bed. I'd just left Merry and Elspeth in clean sheets, their noses in books and lamplight flooding their freshly showered faces. Bea had shown me her last trick for the evening ("I do it for the Show," she promises me every night, arching her back). Martin was outside mowing in the last of the daylight, and I hunched over my desk at the second floor window and studied the garden. Sky blue spires of lupines rose next to glowing dark plum trees; spiky purple alliums popped by the budding tea roses. How long will it take until our pears and apples bear? How big will the oak and maple trees grow, and what will they hide with their dense leaves? When they are so huge I can barely remember when I planted them, where will Elspeth, Bea and Merry be? Far away, I'll warrant, if their independence is any indication. And good adventures I wish to them, too!

Take courage, heart: the weeds will always be with us. Did I mention the weeds? So many, many weeds, growing in profusion after endless rain.

Still, I'll not be twisted over some crab grass; soon I'll be out there armed with piles of newspaper and shovels full of mulch.

And now I've got to beat Martin to the shower.

Take Me Out [to my own couch] to the Ballgame[s]

If you sat in the brown chair near to me here in the living room, you'd hear the clock ticking. In the far distance, the faint, ever-present whine of the coal mine. The sound of car wheels on a wet street. But no baseball.

Baseball has created a new white noise in our house every night for the past month. Martin discovered he could order the entire MLB season on our Roku, and this translates to more games than one person could possibly watch. Baseball players never take a night off, apparently. Every night Martin tucks the girls in and then almost falls over his feet on his way to the TV, where he flips on yet another Astros game. Ah, the sound of the crowd; the sonorous voices of the announcers; the applause when Pence Whathisname makes yet another fabulous base hit.

I am being a good friend to Martin, and I have watched quite a few hours of baseball at his side, even though I have no natural interest in the sport or in any sport. I've eased into the rhythm of the pitchers, hitters, RBIs, the catcher signalling pitches into his crotch with two or three fingers. There is a certain narrative quality to the sport, and this I respect and even enjoy. But let me ask you all a question. Why is it that baseball players feel feel compelled even to engage in socially unacceptable behaviors? I'm not referring to the occasional yelling between coaches and referees on the mound. I'm talking about the endless clothing adjustments (particularly to one sensitive area), and the eternal spitting. Who needs to spit that much? In what world is scattering the hulls to sunflower seeds along with your own saliva okay? And as for the scratching, the pulling, the shaking of the crotch, why? I started to wonder, do the uniforms just not fit anyone? Are they made badly on purpose? Or is it all just part of the glorious baseball tradition?

I have a favorite player, though I can't remember his name. Hold on, let me ask Martin. Brett Wallace. I like his face and his boyish eyes; he always looks like he's trying to be serious as befits the occasion.

Baseball is back on. Martin was out with our friend Kevin, checking out some flooding in our county. They didn't get very far because an emergency vehicle that was blocking a flooded road. Martin reported briefly that the roads were deserted and the fog made the countryside eerie, and then he returned to baseball.

It's like we have a house guest who will never leave. And Baseball season is not particularly brief. It ends (wait for it) in EARLY OCTOBER!

And then comes the playoffs. Good times. There's a lot more crotch grabbing in our future. Guess what? David Wright just hit a homer. The Mets are ahead, 5-4. We're on the edge of our seats. Ooo, my man Brett Wallace is up to bat. (According to the announcer, Wallace's legs are like tree trunks). He swings. . .gotta go.

My story, "The Weight of Birds," has been published by Prism Review in California. You can see samples of Issue 13, including my story in full, by clicking HERE. It's a quirky one--enjoy!

Mojito Breeze at Wazoo

"Hello, this is Equitable Gas!" the friendly, male automated voice interrupts my last cup of tea. "You're going to be up bleeping creek without a paddle if you don't remit payment soon, sucker. Like hot water? Well, it's GOOOOONE."

See, this is the problem, mateys. We have the money to pay our bills but I, the bill payer, have procrastinated her duties endlessly. We've gone all soft around here in the past day and a half. Martin's done grading poetry portfolios and last exams and we're feeling the mellow, mint-tinged summer breeze of change. Nobody wants to do anything they're supposed to anymore. I've got a column to write and I'm on my little spiffy Netbook, writing this instead. I'm still in my pjs. Martin is looking for bike tires on the internet. Bea is standing on a kitchen chair, shouting, "Could I just have ONE?" (One M&M, that is). I tell her, you can have one if you go to the potty. Too late. Apparently the post-school lazies are affecting us all in different ways. Thankfully, there is only one of us here at Wazoo who thinks a good time includes pooping her pants.

I did pay the gas bill this morning. I love hot water too much. And Mojitos. I love to say "moJIto," I love to fill my hands with tender spring mint, I love to sip languidly in the company of good people on our back porch, listening to the wind chimes and the jealous birds begging for just a sip. For a few days I've been awakening with a feeling of cloudy doom lingering over my head, a leftover of stressful, busy last work weeks. And then I tell myself, "All is well," and the clouds thin out to wispy cirrus high up in a hot blue sky.

Come by and celebrate with us. Bring a lime. We've got the rum.

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.

My HEART leaps UP when I beHOLD

Merry just finished shouting out Roald Dahl from her bed upstairs, where she's been reading every book the man ever wrote in quick succession over the last couple weeks. When she comes to one of Dahl's cunning, rhyming ditties, she always yells the lines to establish the rhythm. It takes me back to high school, when our literature teacher had us line up and march, shouting as if we were in boot camp: My HEART leaps UP when I beHOLD a RAINbow IN the SKY. So WAS it THEN when I was YOUNG; so WILL it BE when I am OLD!

That particular literature teacher, who had been sent to Kenya by the Assemblies of God, was the most excellent of teachers. I say this despite two offenses: a memorable, hateful comment about gay people, and her failure to read or award a grade for my independent study, which was a novel I had written in the style of E.M. Forster after reading every book of his the library had, (which, ironically, excluded Maurice--I had to read that one after returning to the US). This teacher, slim, with long wavy hair, and a thin, precise looking face, was probably not all that much older than I am now, but to me then, she seemed like a career single woman. She didn't play favorites as much as some of the other teachers, like another AOG (Assemblies of God) woman who had taught me literature the year before (and terribly boring grammar) and oversaw the yearbook staff and who luckily liked me.

The AOG teachers were generally better than the Baptist teachers in our school full mostly of missionary kids, though we did enjoy some diversity from children of other, nonreligous expatriates, including kids from Eritrea, Zambia, and Ethiopia who apparently valued an American education and testing in order to make transition to US Universities easier. The Mennonite teachers were by far the most sensible and interesting--there were several Millers, including the superb music teacher who made us memorize a hymn every week and whose wall read: Can't never did anything until he took off his tail and became Can. I never really understood that saying though I carried it in my head forever after; how could a word have a tail? I was all for personification in general, but Can't becoming Can in an seemingly meaningless omission of a body part seemed absurd.

The AOG teachers were a breed unto themselves. They believed in second baptism by the holy spirit (the first was by water, of course), and encouraged speaking in tongues, though I never heard any of them bust out the tongues during school. Our chaplain was AOG and we had sat (or raised compliant hands) through numerous altar calls and heeded his warnings that the devil was a lion seeking to devour one of us.

The female AOG teachers lived on a compound together. When we visited, I was astonished that everything in their houses, from toilet paper to door handles, had been imported from the US. Visiting them was like stepping into an air conditioned Georgia suburban house. One teacher's bathroom even sported a special roll of tissue; every perforated cube bore a different FarSide cartoon. I'd only seen deep carpets with matching drapes like this in the JC Penney catalogs my grandmother would send back with my dad from America on one of his trips.

I'd had a few literature teachers before Miss Middleton. The first I remember well was a thin Baptist woman with dark patches on her face who warned us to skip the Edgar Allen Poe story in our anthology. The Telltale Heart was dark and of the devil. She leaned over her desk and said, in a quiet voice edged with sadness, "You may read it if you wish, but I don't recommend it." I think she was grieved because although she'd offered us her best advice, she knew some of us would foolishly engage in bad judgment and read it anyhow. We capped that year by rewriting the end of "Romeo and Juliet" so everything was okay; Romeo and Juliet didn't end in juvenile tragedy but lived on in love. I'm sure I rewrote it with the rest of the class, and while I breezed through and skirted around the edges of Poe, I never actually sat down and read the story. Back then I was a good kid who wanted to please her teachers, and I guess I'm still that way, though I hope I've been able to pump my moral courage with some wisdom by this point.

Fast forward some years and I'm a senior in Miss Middleton's AP Literature class. She has us read and read and read and she is a perfect stickler for passive verbs and sloppy sentences. She docks us points for every passive verb we utilize until we write so actively our figurative hair blows in the wind of our brilliance. (She would have hated that last silly metaphor, by the way). I read Wuthering Heights and fall deeply in love with all the dark drama--I end up writing my AP essay on the ending of Bronte's novel--Heathcliff and the moors fit plumb with the rather violent, shadowy phase in my own writing (barring the E.M. Forster novel). But Miss Middleton does not treat me like the genius I think I am; she discards my dramatic poetry for one clear-headed, simple piece that I write one day while staring at a painting, which portrays a Spanish man about to be executed. I can still see the strong colors of that painting in my mind, the astonished eyes of the doomed man in his white shirt, arms flung wide, as he looks at the cold, exploding line of the firing squad.**

Perhaps my best memory of Miss Middleton is when she perched on the edge of her desk and summoned us all to gather close. Then, in a breezy classroom in our school full of missionary kids and conservative teachers, she cracked Chaucer and read us The Miller's Tale, unabridged and unedited, with farts flying forth and all the splendid vulgarity old Chaucer could muster!

By the time I stumbled onto a college campus one year later in a suburb of Chicago, I was ready for three-hundred level courses. And thanks to Miss Middleton, I could write a literary analysis that was as tight as a clam. But more than this, during that last year in Kenya, my heart had leapt into a world of stories and words so magnificent that my imagination would never be the same.

__________________
**(I have been trying to identify this painting and the painter and have not been able to--can anyone out there illuminate me? I could sketch it for you--badly--but the title I remembered was a Manet painting and not the right one at all).