Apparently I've become a weeding weakling.  A season of sitting on my bottom and writing and doing little else has rendered my wrists shaky and my legs jello.  After only thirty minutes of weeding.  Ach!

We were sad to see Maurice Sendak had died.  He would have been pleased to hear Merry, at age three, recite Where the Wild Things Are complete with sound effects.  This morning we sat in the sun room and drank our third cup of tea as Martin read his obituary out loud.  I will read Micky in the Night Kitchen with just a twinge of sadness from now on.

The house smells of baking sweet potatoes.  Yesterday, before rain filled the night with a wonderful, healing song, Martin mowed a path through the garden so now at least I can see the blue haze of speedwell and the white azalea petals among all the weeds.

Martin is packing up hundreds of poetry books and bringing home lamps and rugs and pictures and all that has filled his office for seven years.  It is a mercy that the Fine Arts building is slotted for work this summer due to asbestos, because he is only one of a great crowd packing up their offices and filling the elevator with boxes.  It feels better to be part of a crowd surging outwards than one lone fellow, the one who was not tenured, stumbling down the stairs under a tower of books.  Of course he'll use the elevator.  It just seems sadder to stumble down the stairs.

I am filling the basement with boxes and furniture, as well, for the first of a series of clean-outs that will eventually end with a pod, or a moving van, or the back of the pick-up, if need be.

Merry loves to chat about where we might live next, especially the house we might occupy.  Finally, after a long discussion one morning, I said, "Well, maybe we'll just sell everything and live in our car."

Merry made a face.  "That might be a little too small," she said.

"You can have your own seat," I pressed.  "All to yourself.  Some people live in their cars."

"I don't think they live in a Subaru," she said, "Not a family of five.  Besides," she continued, "Can you imagine what would happen to me at school when my teacher asked me to draw a picture of myself and my house?  It would be me, in front of a blue Subaru!"

Ach.  So scratch the car.  And scratch the almost-acre garden.  What were we thinking?  We're not big garden people, I've decided.  Just enough.  It will become my new mantra.  Just enough, and maybe, some days, a little more.

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.

F & I

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.

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.

Some of us get fancy

dandy lion or

their version of Dandelion (original by Don Freeman)

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.

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.

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.

Poem for the Day: High Heels

Walking with extra height,
she is now twice as high
as her friends,
she casts a long shadow
on bus steps,
birds, teachers,
window washers wonder
tower or girl?
(She suffers from vertigo)
In speech class, she hisses
her eses with confidence,
knowing what trees, women,
giraffe feel like as they
eat upright,
turn their heads to sun,
languidly sip contrails,
And the sun is closer,
the universe almost within reach.

The first two lines of this poem is taken from a brief interview I held with Merry about wearing her new high heeled shoes to school (for the record and my reputation, they are not true high heels).

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.

Pay Attention, Silly

Beatrix, who screamed and poured out water on her sheets all through her nap as I lay down with Elspeth, is sitting on the trampoline with a red rubber spoon, throwing pieces of apple onto the carpet. Dressed in her sheep pjs, with her hair pulled askance from an hour of keeping herself awake, she's testing my appreciation for her sweetness at the moment. Merry is firing off math problems that are impossible for me to do in my head--What's 453 times 9? And then she triumphantly calls out the answer. I think she's cottoned on to my lack of enthusiasm for mentally struggling through the fifth problem, since she just said, "MOMMY. Can you. . .look, listen? Pay attention?"

All I want to do is write a poem or work on my quirky story, "Empress Chicken," which may die in the end, but I want to find out for myself. Bea just hung upside down from the bar on her trampoline and dropped herself on her head. A pause as she assesses whether she's hurt or not. A scream. I love the children, I love the children, I love the children. Why isn't my afternoon cup of tea working?

St. Patty's Day Madness at Wazoo

The garden's EN FUEGO!!!

Yesterday was so unbelievably beautiful that we spent almost every minute outside. I finally liberated my spring bulbs from the dry overgrowth that I allow to stay every winter. Laden with snow, the butterfly bushes, which grow to the size of small trees, look magical, and the tangle of Russian Sage appears silvery and delicate on dull, grey mornings. The birds love hiding places and seed heads, and besides, I'm always sick of tending to the garden in the fall.

But it was quintessential spring yesterday, and the poor crocus felt a little sickly and the tulips and daffs were a bit grumpy and felt taken for granted, so I wielded my pruners and liberated them.

The purple crocus, which had been pinched and wizened, found the sun. It threw back its petals and gave a wolf cry from deep within its golden throat. When I stepped back outside after a little break, this is what I found:

I'll give a quick photo tour of the other highlights of our day. . .
. . .My good luck charms--two of them, anyway.

My friend Michelle came for the Irish feast adequately prepared. I give you, the sushi 'o the Irish:

My mother, another lucky charm, peeling the tatties.

My classy tribute to St. Patrick's day (I also tried my feet at a jig):

And a special visit from Kerry O'Malley, who brought us good luck out the wazoo.

Hope your St. Patty's was just as delightful. Happy Friday, all.

Fiction, Full of Danger

I spent much of yesterday moving area rugs and cleaning the floors underneath. Tiny treasures, such as stale cheerios, old goldfish crackers, pieces of Lego and wooden beads abounded. Moving the furniture by myself (wedging my back under and table and lifting, turtle-like) to smooth out area rugs was a delight--not a necessity, since Martin would have lent a hand, but my preference, because then I don't have to worry about any grumpiness but mine. I couldn't possibly lift the piano, though I tried, so I had to wait for a little extra help. I hate it when I can't do things all by myself. Hmm. Maybe that's where the girls get their sometimes-alarming, mostly-encouraging independence.

Merry just cornered me in the dining room and told me about a book that her friend Cat had read and hated. Turns out the blurb on the back amounted to what they thought was false advertising: it told about the friendship between a boy and a girl, all the wonderful things they did, and the cover showed the smiling little girl about to cross a rope bridge over a rushing river. Unfortunately, Merry says, at the very end of the book, the little girl gets swept into the same river and dies. "Can you believe it?" she says. "It's AWFUL. Why would they have to do that in a story? The mom or dad could have died, and that would have been better. But not the KID." Merry was so upset her eyes were almost watering. It seemed like a good opportunity to talk about fiction, but Merry was not persuaded by any of my arguments. "They were supposed to have good times," Merry said, "The book is actually called the name of the river. That's the main part of the story--" Merry stares at me with incredulous eyes--"She dies."

I felt the same way about "Mill on the Floss," but I had to read through two million pages to get to the final drowning scene. Fiction. It's full of pitfalls. Better to avoid it altogether and focus on daily activities, like moving enormous pieces of furniture.

:) Happy Friday, everyone.

Say WHAT?

Near the end of our waffle consumption this morning, Merry (who had finished first) breezed into the kitchen and said, "Mommy,can I be a Cover Girl?"

Martin's and my heart almost stopped. "What?"

Merry repeated herself. "Mommy, can I be a Hover Girl?"

Well, that was a different matter entirely. Earlier, sitting next to my oldest child, who was dressed in a 1982 striped exercise suit with a skirt from the dress-up box, I'd noticed her humming in a high and awful manner. "Merry, please stop that noise," I said. "It sounds like you're a bug."

"That's what it's meant to sound like," she answered, with a faraway look in her eyes.

All morning, we've had two girls and Hover Girl, who zooms around the house whining like a mosquito. There are three specific hover-moves: upwards hover, downwards hover, and side-to-side hover. Despite great protestation, I made her change out of her exercise suit into regular clothes, and now she's Purple Hover Girl, charged with bringing peace to grocery stores (apparently, our local market is currently overrun by robbers and desperately in need of a visit from P.H.Girl) and spreading goodwill everywhere.

Martin and I discussed the problems of hovering, including not being able to stay put on a toilet seat and hovering at other awkward moments--at school, for instance--but overall, it seems like a good thing. We're just grateful Merry isn't pining to be a Cover Girl--anything would be better than that: Sewer Girl, Rock-Splitter Girl, Drainpipe Girl, anything. Even insect noises.

Wow, folks! Thanks for the wonderful response to our "Add-a-Caption" game! I'll leave it up for comments through the end of Monday just in case some of you didn't get a chance to dig up a caption. As Monday closes, Wazoo will VOTE.

PS. Martin just found Merry climbing into our bed (it's 11 pm) and asked her why she was getting in when we weren't even there yet and she answered, "A man named Triangle." The poetry of the sleep-walker.

OH NO

OH NO!

My cry after everything--my pictures I'd downloaded, the entire post I'd worked on during a precious hour when Martin took the girls--GONE. Just because my computer downstairs suddenly stopped wanting cookies. Who doesn't want cookies???

Well, my return to all of you was fresh, full of hope for the New Year, glorious, sparkling like the waters of the Puget Sound on an uncommonly clear day. Martin was gazing into the noonday sunshine; my father was holding Elspeth over the railing of a ferry, and the Cascades were snowcapped. I believe there were even dolphins flipping and seals shouting hello--and now you've just got me, kind of grumpy, jaded, attitude ruined by cookies.

So sorry to return to you like this.

I also described how full of gratitude I felt for such a wonderful vacation in Washington and Texas, how Martin and I went away overnight for the first time without children in seven years, our beautiful presents, and such good food that I went up an entire size. I was witty in the way I described my present detox (hardly any sugar/fat, only a few truffles as compared to a steady diet of truffles), and slightly sentimental when describing how much we loved being with family.

I opened the post with three funny anecdotes: one about Elspeth smearing bubblegum on her eyelids and in her hair today in the car; another about Merry trying to leave the house in two items of my clothing; and the third about Bea's potty training, the way she loves sitting in the bathroom and talking about "peww-oup" and singing the song, "Life is a highway! I'm gonna ride it all night laaa-onge. . ." It was rather funny and meant to bring you back to the warm, silly fold of Wazoo Farm after such a long hiatus.

But it's gone, all gone. Disappeared in a puff of internetty smoke.

Well, folks, I'm back. It's really nice to be home, cookies and all.

Peaceful Family Outing

A woman with a beautifully dark complexion and a thick mass of hair that hangs down past the ties of her green apron just came and cleared my table. "Got left with the dishes," she commented.

"That is a GOOD deal," I said. "Left with the dishes but no kids. I'll take that ANY day."

I stood up and tried to help her load up the black tray and succeeded in tipping over plastic cups and wadding a bunch of white napkins in one fist. "We had a bit of an incident with the hot chocolate," I explained. (Was I twitching? Was my eyelid fluttering uncontrollably?)

"That's what a mop is for," she replied, waiting as I fumbled with more dishes. Finally she said, as I swiped at a storm of crumbs all over the table, "And we have cloths to mop off the tables, too."

Now the woman is wiping off the rack of gift cards by the check-out, her hair lustrous under the recessed lighting--and I realize that she's pregnant, close to her due date. Is it her first child? Heh, heh. Life is about to change forever, lady.

Another couple just came in with a baby strapped in a car seat--the man, an older guy with trendy glasses and hiking boots, just paused from working on his Blackberry to tuck in a striped green, white, and blue blanket back into the seat. His wife, also working on a Blackberry, speaks low in German. Goopy, spineless, relaxing music--high female voices singing indecipherable but probably Christmassy lyrics-- spread over us all like a vague blessing. . .the man utters a long stream of oogie-boogie--ahs and unearths his son, a surprisingly chunky kid, suited up in shades of blue, from the depths of the blanket. Now, over the loudspeaker, there's a disturbingly operatic cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

Just a few minutes ago, this corner of the box bookstore up on a hill just over the PA border in West Virginia was a blur of hands waving soup spoons, smashed bagel pieces, crushed green straws, and an arc of hot chocolate that spattered two out of five family members--Bea had already speckled her white turtleneck with chocolate and Elspeth, who dropped the cup, missed the fountain entirely.

It was shortly after the chaos that Martin offered to take the girls to the children's section and the woman with the gleaming hair came and saved our table from its sad state.

And there you have it. Just another peaceful family outing. And still the Christmas music streams on--now a 1950's beat, a perky female voice, and lyrics that include: bells, ring out, Christmas every day.

It's a magical time, all in all.

Now Italian, a duet of two of the world's most full-throated tenors.

Merry Wander

I just browsed through some of our old pictures, and I found a series I'd saved under "Merry Wander." Merry, my oldest, is one of those children whom I've often seen walk away, not because she's angry or doesn't love home, but because she's brave and independent. The first day of school she set her jaw and boarded the bus just as she used to steel herself for a ride on the merry-go-round as a toddler. As the painted horses bobbed up and down to the cheery music, she'd scowl in concentration. Once when I was pushing her on the swing, she said in a musing sort of way: "I recognize that I'm having fun."

Dear Merry, wandering about not because she's lost but because she's determined to experience the next adventure, whether that means leaving home without a second glance or hunkering over a book she's reading, barely glancing up for a kiss before bed.

I looked at those pictures of her wandering into the snow, across the rocks in Sedona, down into the desert scrub, and I felt this stirring every parent feels, a mixture of pride and a little sadness at the water-gush of time: you can't cup it in your hands; it just rushes out, cold and clear, astonishes you, and then passes on through your fingers, and slips away. Of course there's always more coming, and that keeps me so busy and engaged that I have very little time for sadness.

And today is so bright and warm, a fuzzy gift in my hands, that I think a merry sort of wander may be called for. Over the river, then, through the woods!