New Book Review

Make sure you read WC Long's new book review on Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. (Look under "More Fun" post below).

Babies, Children, Dogs, My Mother Have More FUN

Merry dances, singing along with the words of Fly Me to the Moon. Her hands are clasped in front of her, knees bending as she steps back and forth to the rhythm. Elspeth and I are watching her through the crack in the pocket doors. I'm afraid that when Merry sees us she'll become self-conscious and stop her performance.

Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars. . .

Elspeth knows nothing about surreptitious watching. Soon she begins struggling to get down and I pull the pocket doors open, sure that Merry's earnest face will quickly crinkle into an embarrassed smile.

In other words, hold my hand. . .

Merry surprises me. She doesn't flinch at our entrance. She just sings on, and if anything, she's even more animated.

Children. We adults stand in awe and some jealousy at the wonderful turn of their imaginations, their sheer delight that is not compromised by the presence of others. (Didn't Madeleine L'Engle say she really DID float down her grandmother's stairs?) I don't want to see Merry's ability to engage fully in a moment crack as she becomes older.

Of course mine did. It took me a whole pile of painful adolescent years until I was able to act without agonizing over myself. I could have been in the middle of the woods on a hike and still labor under the illusion that I was being watched, weighed, and measured.

People seem to have this crippling self-awareness in different measures. Okay--right now, take your self-consciousness and subtract it from yourself. What you have left over is the amount of sheer FUN you will glean from life. It follows, then, that babies, children, dogs, and my mother have a bigger allotment of FUN than do the rest of us.

My mother used to come to our classes in late elementary school at Thanksgiving to tell the story of the Mayflower. She would roll popcorn balls for our class the night before, and then, as I sat in the front row, she'd don an old cap over her brown hair. Suddenly she would be Frances, young girl on the Mayflower ship, rolling with the ocean waves and eating weevil-bread. Most of me was wildly proud of my mother as I helped to hand out popcorn balls after her dramatic soliloquy. But a tiny part of me was embarrassed at the carefree way she lunged her face toward the audience, the way she folded her hands and squeezed them between her knees. My classmates just thought I had a great mom.

My mother is a powerful storyteller and speaker. One of the biggest reasons for this is that she doesn't get in the way. When she speaks, you let her words and the images she unfolds wrap around your imagination like huge wings. And as you listen, you fly with her story. There is no snuffling, pretentious person getting in the way, only the voice bearing the words; there are no false apologies or self-conscious gestures to make you remember that the story that so intrigues you is coming from a very talented storyteller. You only remember my mother when the story is over. See, THAT's the mark of a good storyteller.

My mother is able to live life this way, too. She always had enough spontaneity to more than cover the rest of us self-conscious, serious sods. If I want a real reaction, I go to my mother.

Most of my life, I strove to be just as spontaneous as my mother. But of course you see the problem already.

I'm a limp, failed storyteller. When I tell a joke I mix up all the details and let the punchline slip early. I apologize for myself and make my listeners wait while I retrieve a word that slipped out of my head and into the abyss. Writing is the only way I can chuck myself completely out of the way. I write, or I hope to write, like my mother speaks. Often I live life standing to the side of myself, jotting down notes to use later. Some of my most genuine spontaneity occurs when I sit down with those notes and begin to relive them on a page.

This is not always true, and certainly having children has loosened me up and stretched me out (in more ways than one). Watching your own children brings back much of the excitement and selflessness of your own childhood.

Elspeth, my one year old, loves with great spontaneity. She toddles across the room and throws her arms around my neck. And parent love is also spontaneous. My love rushes unbidden from my pores, seeping into her little body and strengthening her for all of life. In this way, in this artless love, I am just like my mother.

CONTRIBUTOR REVIEW: JOAN OF ARC BY MARK TWAIN

Joan of Arc

Mark Twain
Ignatius Press; New Ed edition (September 1989)


For someone familiar with Twain, this novel will seem a bit odd as it has none of his classic wit or biting sarcasm. Indeed, it was originally published under a pseudonym because Twain thought that people would expect these things from it and be disappointed. To be truly honest, this reviewer understands Twain’s reluctance to be associated with it, as this foray outside of his usual writing style was not his best work.

The narrator of the story is eighty-year-old man writing to his grandnephews. He was a childhood friend of Joan’s, who later became her secretary, and finally the recorder at her final trial, and thus represents a firsthand witness to all the important events of Joan’s life. His narration is colored throughout the story by an almost idolatrous esteem for Joan; he never married and it is suggested that this is because he never found a woman who could live up to her. This esteem is not a problem in itself; indeed, the reader can hardly help but admire Joan nearly as much as the narrator does. The problem is that the admiration taints the style of the storytelling. The narrator is constantly padding every part of his story with extraneous praise for Joan; barely an incident passes without him adding a comment reminding the reader that what Joan had done only served to highlight what a sublime creature she was. This is disappointing because Joan’s character is perfectly obvious from the story itself, and the added commentary only distracts. One only needs to be shown; the telling is redundant and tedious.
A second problem of the style is that the reader is never excited by what happens in the story. A good writer of historical fiction should make events of the past seem as thrilling as they were when they first happened, even if the reader knows how the story ended. Alas, Twain seems incapable of making any of the many battle scenes exciting, which is a pity as there are so many of them. The main problem is that the reader is consistently told what the outcome of all the events is going to be well beforehand, and it is usually oft repeated. Joan is injured in one battle, and he lets us know about the wound-to-be three weeks ahead of time, repeating the news of its advent so often that by the time she is actually struck by the crossbow bolt the reader is simply relieved.

The book is not without merit, however. Twain meticulously researched the subject before writing the story, reading the official records of Joan’s several trials, as well as many accounts of her life from both the French and English perspectives. So while the style may be wanting, the story itself seems as faithful to the record as possible, and thus gives the reader a fascinating glimpse into this little part of history. More importantly, what emerges from the story is the giant character of Joan herself and the model of faith and hope that she was. This seems to be what fascinated Twain about the story; he saw in Joan a larger-than-life persona and a faith that he could not entirely understand, and he wanted to capture that in a story. In this he succeeds, and the story, for all its stylistic flaws, is worth reading if only because Joan, at least as she is portrayed by Twain, is a person worth understanding and admiring.

--Reviewed by William Christopher Long
W. C. Long is, at this VERY moment, finishing his PhD in Marine Biology at VIMs University in Virginia. When asked what the heck he really does with all his time, Chris wrote: "To be pedantic, I take the clams, and mark them (the shells have to be dry otherwise the sharpies won't work) and then transplant them into the murky black York River." In his leftover time, WC enjoys his adventerous daughter and her as-yet invisible sibling.

Teach your Kids Violence: Read them the Old Testament

Last August. We sat out on the porch, basking in the late summer warmth and enjoying a quiet dinner. The coal mine groaned from across the valley but our neighborhood smelled like newly-mown grass. Merry was four.

We had company. Merry, big lovely eyes luminescent in the early twilight, looked up from her plate. "Guess what Elephant did now?" she began. (Elephant is Merry's alter ego in a parallel universe called Cornia.) Our guests listened politely. "He went into the dark dark woods, but then there was a wolf."

Since we are not feeding you dinner, let me make a long, long story short: Elephant defends himself by many means that prove futile. Finally, Elephant cuts off the wolf's head and totes it home triumphantly. Oh, fraptious day! Elephant has slain the wolf! Elephant swings in the door, announcing, "WOLF HEAD for DINNER TONIGHT!" I do believe I've left out other gory details. Needless to say our guests were well entertained and probably concluded we were bad parents who let Merry stay up watching late TV.

But everything Merry ever learned about violence (barring a couple bang-bang-you're-deads from two boys with plastic pistols) she learned from pouring over her children's copy of the Old Testament.

Today at lunch Merry paused in the middle of her peanut-butter and marmalade sandwich. "Mommy?"

Oh, blast. Merry regularly asks things like how a bathtub is built, the existence of Jesus, why did God make mosquitoes. Merry seems to believe I am an endless fount of trivia and general knowledge and her questions are far-ranging, covering more than spirituality and engineering.

"Yes?"

"Mommy, how did that little rock kill Goliath?"

I opened the door to the little storeroom where we keep compost. A musty odor filled my nostrils. Banana peels, coffee grounds. "Well, maybe it was a sharp rock, like a knife."

"But how did David know he would kill Goliath?"

"Well, I guess sometimes you just have to do the right thing even if you don't know whether it will work out or not."

As Elspeth spit out apple peels and flung bread to the ground, I realized my answer was problematic and poor. Maybe you have some good reasons as to why this answer stunk, and I have mine.

First, I hate answering in the same old cliches that parents always are guilty of on Hallmark TV and bad movies.

Second, we are pacifists. I had just told my daughter that an exceedingly violent act was the right thing to do.

Third, the sentence itself was badly constructed. Pauline-like prepositions, run-on, readability--definitely F.

Fourth. Hmmm. Well, depending on what you believe, there's a fourth. I happen to be from the camp of people that believes that most faith "giants" were real, quaking people inside somewhere. Maybe you think David had the faith to know everything would work out in the end. I don't even think Jesus knew for sure when he was about to die that everything would definitely work out. He acted out of obedience and love, not out of knowledge.

But I digress.

Merry ate her sandwich in silence. Was she turning over the inadequacy of my blithe answer?

Instead, she opened her mouth to ask another question. Very probably it was about one of her favorite Bible characters, "Bad-Man-Herod" or Sampson. Instead she said, "That place where Daddy keeps his tractor is a PIG-STY."

Ah, delight in children. Most often Merry is quick to point out my inconsistencies. But here she did not. There are only three things I do not allow into the house: play guns, Barbies (equally if not more harmful in an insidious way), and dirty shoes.

But at Merry's request I read her the Old Testament. Of course stories have conflict and often have heroes and villains and the fight between good and evil. But the difference here is the issue of Merry's spiritual heritage. When reading Merry the Old Testament, I am in a mindset of my Sunday School lessons, blowing my trumpet for the fall of the wall of Jericho; cutting off Goliath's head in glad victory; crushing my enemies with the mighty sword of Jehovah. (Certainly every tender child felt the weight of Jael's hammer as she drove the tent peg through the general's temple--oh, wait. Actually, that story is not in Merry's Bible. Neither Jael or Rahab make it to the pages. But Delilah does, of course. No Bible, not even a children's Bible, could leave out a tasty morsel like Delilah.)

I do not say, as I say every time we talk about violence on the news or in the course of life, "That is a sad way to deal with a problem, isn't it, Merry?" Instead there is the implicit message that Samson was a HERO, tearing down those temple walls and smashing all those people in the ruins. GOOD JOB, Samson!

Then there follows this strange dichotomy I often see in conservative Christian households.
Sex on TV? Superbad. Violence? The more the better!
Feminism? Lies. Subordination of women? God-given right.
Gay marriage? An abomination. War that kills innocent people? Justified.
Money spent on welfare? A waste. Billions on bombs and military? Worth it.

But I didn't mean to get so negative. Count the above as a rant born from the frustration of a person who is tired of the way things are but doesn't know all the answers, either.

Merry's question sparked by a child's Old Testament reminded me of the discomfort I feel with this idea: the divine entitlement to victory for "God's people" through bloodshed. It is a lie that has haunted America since the beginning of our country when the Native Americans were robbed of their land. It is a lie that continues to haunt us now as more innocents die in Iraq. When did we forget that we are all God's people, and all deserving of peace?

Merry sang a song at bedtime today. Imposing my mother's perspective on her song I hope it is about God's Kingdom of peace on earth (whether she knows it or not!):

The seeds have to be spread in gardens
And the plants will sprout and finally bloom
The vision of God's day has bloomed.
God is the bloomer of each day. . .
The most thing that we have to do to please God
Is to be kind to other people
For the God the only Son is in my heart all day and all night.


P.S. More on Arizona is forthcoming, I promise; I'm just waiting for pictures!

White Witch Snapped Like Dirty Laundry

Spring makes me want to gather up my house in my arms. Ah, it's laundry day for the house once again. I'll take the house to the back stoop and snap it out in the bright spring sunshine. The house crevices, hiding a season's worth of cracker crumbs, mouse droppings, layers of winter dust, toddler germs--all will be shaken clean! Begone, nasty old winter! And then I'll fold up the house like a bright white sheet, a crisp fresh tablecloth, and bring it indoors again. White Witch has been banished into a dark corner of the world. Her strength is broken, her mind awhirl with "might-have-beens."

Okay, winter wasn't that bad. All the same I am grateful for the thaw, for the little spiky heads of the crocus bulbs, for my neighbor who I haven't seen in six months. She finally ventured out with her little dog, fingers clasped around a cup of hot tea, to survey her yard. We were such good friends last summer. Perhaps we will be good friends again as temperatures rise.

Wazoo Farm looks rumpled and soggy. It has been sleeping for a long time. There are signs of wakefulness, though--a dead robin under a barelimbed bush, small deposits of deer droppings, fledgling stinging nettles in the grass. Yes, it's not the most giddy picture of spring, but it's spring nonetheless.

Today at lunch Merry said:
I heard at the beginning of Cinderella an ad that said, Who Will Save the World? [She paused, puzzled, then continued:] The WORLD doesn't need saving, Mommy. PEOPLE need saving.

The old Bible verse I've known since I was two began climbing its way hand over fist up my throat and onto my tongue. But I didn't say it. So, look you here: the world is saved, in a timeless kind of way. Yes, the world is mixed up with the confused intentions of people. (There is early tender spring and a rotting dead robin.) There is war, the product of confused and lonely people.

But then, the world is lovely, is breathtaking, as gentle and cool as the last sliver of ice melting into my garden soil.

Hurrah for spring.

Home

Home again, Home again, clippity-clop. At three or so this morning we finally pulled into our driveway. Both girls were asleep and Martin and I were close to delirium.

There are several pieces of good news.

One. No mice, and no mice droppings. (Upon return after last trip, Martin found three corpses in varying states of decomposition).

Two. A really lovely letter from my college writing mentor about my book.

Three. A beautiful, sunny, throw-open-the-windows day today.

Four. We were not blown up by creepy unibomber look-alike on last flight from Midway-Chicago.

I don't think I am an overly paranoid person. Granted, we had cajoled two children through an endless web of airport check-in and security, and soothed them through two flights already.

So we were finally boarding our last plane from Chicago-Midway to home. We were grateful though apprehensive of the late hour and the state of two over-tired children. At least Southwest is the airline with a heart, and they still do the morally correct thing and let families with small children (often on the brink of insanity) board early.

But this flight had holdovers from the plane's last destination. We tripped onto the plane, loaded with computer-, diaper-, snack- bags, wild-eyed one year old and bleary five-year old. There is a camaraderie between all preboarders (heavily pregnant women and loaded-down parents), and we enjoyed the glow as we walked past the shiny-bald flight attendant and onto the plane.

But then, slouching into his seat, encased in the hood of his University of California-Berkeley sweatshirt, a chap in large glasses in the front row gave me pause. I was not judging merely based on appearances. But as I passed with Elspeth on my hip, he let forth a great HISSSSSSS. Indeed, he hissed as Merry passed. Another sweet-cheeked little boy followed us. The hooded man put out his index finger and curled it as if to say FORWARD. And as this sweet little boy passed, he again HISSSSSSed.

It was a full flight. This hissing man was sitting in the front row, primo-seat with lots of leg room, but the two seats beside him were among the last to be filled. I don't think he hissed at all people who passed him, only children, but I can't be sure. One thing was clear: he was sending crazy vibes.

After take-off, this man disappeared into the bathroom and stayed there for a long, long time. Sitting in my seat, breastfeeding Elspeth for the umpteenth time and drinking yet another CranApple juice, I imagined the hisser bent over the bathroom sink, concocting a wildly clever bomb. Or perhaps he would burst out of the bathroom past the bald flight attendant and make a bee-line for my children, yelling incoherent threats.

I planned what I would do if these things were to happen. There comes a time in every exhausted mother's life where she imagines crazy things and then plans what crazy things she will do in response. Martin sipped club soda and wrestled the Sudoku puzzle beside me. He was unconcerned though he did admit the hisser had an uncanny resemblance (only beard lacking) to the unibomber. People are strange, he said, and flipped to the next in-flight magazine puzzle.

Of course he was right. The hisser did not do more than hiss. And I am glad, because my plans for making a great scene in case of emergency were vague at best. Yes, people are odd. And I am included.

Our home airport, when we arrived, was cavernous and echoed in the odd way airports do after midnight. Olympic-Opening-Theme music boomed over the loudspeakers as I carried a sleeping five-year old though the wide deserted terminal. Two men mopped the floor of the food court. Magazines and merchandise stared out at us through the metal teeth of their after-hour grates.

And then, much much later, Martin and I plunged into the cool darkness of the eastern night and drove through the bare-bone forested highways toward home.

Bed never feels so good as after a long absence. We had a wonderful, dream-like vacation in the west, and we hope we carried the spirit of that wide-open place home with us. Home. Our pillows were deep and our own house friendly in the early morning darkness. We had not been blown up, we had not fallen asleep on the way home, and our children were quiet and in their own beds. Thanks be.

Flagstaff. Groovy.

Missoula, Montana. Say it. Do you see that faraway, dreamy look that steals over our faces? It is the same look you see on the visages of people remembering their first true love, first tender steak, first grilled portabello.

Missoula, destination of hippies, drifters, students, Subaru-drivers, skiers, dog-lovers, bong-users. Martin and I arrived there long, long ago, before children. We fell in love with the Mission Mountains and the vegan Indian food and the way Missoula was like a big hand, opening to ideas and art and searchers. We loved the mountains and the hippies that drove SUVs and the bakeries and breweries. We mostly loved being new adults, far away from our pasts, in the midst of exciting people who wanted to hike and chat and fill growlers full of beer.

Missoula, as I said, is many worlds away now. But we remembered it with a bemused longing when we arrived in Flagstaff, Arizona. Flag, as the locals say, is overlooked by the stunning San Francisco peaks. The train clatters by with regularity. Today I saw a man in dreadlocks driving a vintage car accompanied by a shaggy dog panting into the wind from the seat beside him. Women on bicycles wear imported Indian blouses. You can walk to organic food, Indian food, Thai food, you name it--and have a cup of coffee at every corner. Whiffs of incense curl around young men with disheveled hair with their laptops and unwashed shirts and Birkenstocks.

Ah, I thought, as a dreadlocked woman in Indian headscarf checked us out of the organic foods market, it all fits so well. The sunshine, the mountains, the extreme sport shops, everyone in sandals drinking designer coffee. This is our kind of place.

Did I mention that Sedona, with its stunning red rocks and sylvan hikes, is only forty-five minutes away?

Of course, like Missoula, Flagstaff is practically unaffordable. Everyone and her dog wants to live there. And I'm happy to be going home tomorrow to PA. Yeah, Arizona is something out of our early-morning dreams, tinged with the smell of good coffee and drifts of sunlight over our pillows. But we'd miss the hills, and the gray winter that makes us scream for spring, and the mellow summers, and deciduous trees. And as I told Martin, wouldn't we get tired of being around so much total coolness ALL the time?

I want to tell you more about Arizona. I want to show you pictures. And I will. But for now, plan a trip to Flagstaff. When you get here, strap on your sandals. Find some good sushi, and drink some good dark coffee. Send me a postcard.

Gorge Yourself on Trollope and Thin Mints

+




= PURE BLISS


At first I was outraged when Martin told me he had bought girl scout cookies--BUT NO THIN MINTS. For me, the girl scouts and thin mints are synonymous. What did he mean, samoas? How could you buy a box from the girl scouts and not buy thin mints? I seethed impatiently as Martin explained. Coconut? Chocolate? I felt increasingly optimistic. They'd be crunchy, of course--I pictured Swedish biscuits. My wrath subsided to a warm bed of cocoa-coated embers.

"Bring home the samoas!" I commanded haughtily.

Later that same day, uniformed girl scouts smiled responsibly at me from the box as I ripped it open and pulled out the plastic tray. Right-ho. I'd not eaten much that day, maybe a pbj and an apple, and I was hungry. It was "secret-nibbly" time: I give the girls a healthy snack like apple slices while I slink around in the shadows, clandestinely shoving dark chocolate into my mouth.

So. Samoas, here we go. The cookies were chewy rings of coconut-stuff with ribbons of chocolate on top.

At first I was disappointed. Having expected an exquisite crunch, my palate encountered a rather waxy, plastic texture instead. But by the second, and the third, I was willing to overlook mere trifles. By dinner I had devoured many, many samoas.

After the girls were tucked in bed, I settled down with a the last half of BBC Trollope-based He Knew He Was Right and a cup of tea. And did I mention--the last half of the samoas. I was, in a reckless, collegiate-like way, determined to consume the rest of the box. I chomped along strongly for a while. The cookies sustained me most of the way through the melodramatic shlock of this Trollope gem.

My tea cup was cold. It was late. But then, there were more cookies, and there were bonus features. The biography on Anthony Trollope proved highly entertaining-- far more interesting, in fact, than the movie itself. What a gem of an old Victorian Trollope was!

I love the way Anthony Trollope wrote, (pocket watch before him), precisely 3000 words per 3 hours, before work, every day. He was beaten constantly as a student and endured a miserable family, but he overcame this Dickinsonian beginning by hard work. He married a good, well-scheduled Victorian woman who tirelessly produced tasty dinners for him every evening and transcribed all his scribbles. Old Trollope also entertained a secret passion for a bold American woman, and so was a bit of a bastardi for all his straight-laced, Victorian ways. But let's not forget that he left many, many, many, many books behind, and even better, instituted the red postal box that is now a standard feature in every proper English town.

What better combination than a cup of tea, a box of scout cookies, and Trollope? But I couldn't finish all the samoas. Too much of a good thing was making me queasy. Like prolific Trollope, like too many girl scout cookies, some things are just better in moderation.

Opa! For a hilarious take on samoas and culture, check out (click on npr) Marc Acito's commentary on npr.

Sources: Photo of Trollope: www.wikipedia.com______G.S. Cookies: http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs_cookies/cookie_history/

Trollope? In Arizona?

No, no Trollope in AZ. But I published this one in absence, since I will be sans Internet tonight.

xoxoxxo

Rotten Bananas Butte: Merry's Banana Boy

Rotten Bananas Butte is not located, as it sounds, in a Richard Scary town. Oh, no, you can visit Rotten Bananas Butte on the Navajo Reservation here in Arizona, by Chimney and Castle Buttes.

Merry was so delighted by Rotten Bananas Butte that she began illustrating a story right on the spot. On hotel stationary, you can follow the sordid story of Banana Boy. Or you can just ask Merry to tell you:

"One day two little girls were baking a banana. They put it into the oven, and the biggest little girl said, "Oh, I think it's done."
[Merry breaks in: Originally, she says, this story isn't really true. The banana dies in the oven, right here. He doesn't really run away.]
But then the banana jumped out of the oven and said, You can't catch me! He began to run away, and came upon a river."

From here, the story sounds strikingly familiar. Banana Boy meets a fox, so wily and charming that he convinces the banana to climb upon his twitching nose; and then Banana Boy is devoured poste haste. But Merry is again quick to remind you that Banana Boy doesn't really get gobbled up by the fox but perishes at the beginning of the story, in the oven. "Bananas don't run away," she points out. "They just lie there."

Tomorrow we'll see the Grand Canyon. More later. The sun is strong, I just devoured a rich chocolate pudding, and I feel like sleeping.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

I've been standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. Such a fine sight to see.
It's a girl, my Lord, in a flat bed Ford. . .or Martin rocking with Don Henley.

Where to next?

Arizona, Day 1

Yesterday, as we juggled piles of luggage, two carseats, and huge crowds of people seeking a spring break, I began writing in my head. There were four pairs of shoes to remove at the long line in security (yes, a one-year old must have her shoes x-rayed now), and a bit of a pause as a woman with white gloves inspected my purse.

--Ah, she said, pulling out a bottle of hand-sanitizer. Yes, you have to have a baggy.

--A baggy?

--Yes. Do you want to go back out and get a baggy?

I gawked at the long security line. Elspeth, perched on my hip, kicked her sock feet.

--Well, I'll just throw this out then, said the woman. Next time, don't forget your baggy!

Standing in my sock feet, I felt as though I were in kindergarten. Take off your shoes; don't forget your baggy.

The plane from PA to Chicago was packed. We arrived in snowy, cold Chicago late and ran through the airport. As we panted at the gate, a very sleepy Merry burst into tears.

The flight from Chicago to Pheonix was jammed with people, and most of those people seemed to be having a much better time than we were. Behind us sat two young women, one of whom was about to be married and was quite voluble. Seating about the plane was a positive gaggle of bridesmaids who joined said bride in the aisle for drinks and stimulating conversation.

Holding a writhing, screaming Elspeth, I listened to the uninterrupted--and I do mean, no-breath--conversation behind me. The wedding women sounded as if they had memorized sitcom scripts, and the bride held court, regaling her b.maids with endless and varied information about parties and drinking and old boyfriends while sipping beer (ordered from the very attentive bald flight attendant).

Merry slept in a hump on the arm of my seat; Elspeth breastfed and then screamed almost constantly propped up on the other. Both girls were crusted over with evidence of messy colds. Add to this that I had almost completely lost my voice and could barely order a drink or say thank you for peanuts. Yes, I felt rather like an alien with four antennae in that plane full of chatter and beer and shiny, sparkly bridesmaids. Please let this flight end.

And unfortunately the women lowered their voices conspiratorially any time they got to any juicy tidbit that might have compensated for the endless potato-starchy-prattle that they subjected the rest of us to. The best line I heard was delivered by the bride who said, "So guess what my grandmother served at Thanksgiving. Okay. She served stuffing, but she sliced it. Have you ever heard of slicing stuffing? Omigod."

I could tell you about the many endless things we did after our flight landed--I could tell you how Merry and Elspeth and I wandered up and down dirty white flights of stairs in the parking garage--but I will end with this beautiful picture: both girls asleep at the hotel and Martin and I scarfing down a sandwich over the sink in the bathroom before dropping into bed ourselves.

And today, the west pulled at our spirits as we opened ourselves gladly to the expanse of the brilliant sky.

We ran down narrow trails in the Little Painted Desert, where our shadows were far away and tall. If we jumped high enough, would we ever come down? Would our shadows rise and stripe canyons, buttes, mesas until we met the sun?

The sun is strong, and the land is wide and the roads long and straight. Buttes rise up around us; cacti grow like trees; first, second and third mesa glow in the setting sun.

What is it about the west that makes you feel as if you could give away all you own, buy a beat-up old pickup, and disappear into the warm expanse? Reinvention. The idea gets into your blood, and suddenly anything seems possible. The sky, the land, everything is so wide and startling that you feel as if you are flying, even when you are standing small and firm on the ground.

Pictures tomorrow.

Goin West, Yee Ha!

Well, we're takin these headcolds and gittin outta town.

Fact is, I sure shouldn't be wastin my time writin right now, seein as I have me a buncha packin. Sure fired up about it, though. Yippe kiyeh!

Heat! Sun! Open blue skies! Make sure to bring along your sunglasses. Music to my ears.

We are truly boarding a plane this afternoon and skimming our way through the clouds accompanied by the wails of our sinused-plugged children. We're headed for Arizona, where we plan to see my sister and her lovely family down at the Hopi Reservation, where the land expands for miles and miles, orange and brown and beautiful. Where the skies are so deep they make you dizzy. We also plan to take in the scenery at Sadona, the Grand Canyon. . .Oh, the West is the Best!

-Well, to all those of you who have been sweating like skinny wax tapers in the inferno this week, have a lovely break.

I know I plan to. More from. . .ARIZONA later. Wa-hoo!

The Sowness of Sows, the Goodness of Things

Error Detected! Caution: Exit now, or next week, you will:

Nurse an iron head cold that falls upon you like an armor-clad elephant.
Your family will also catch said head colds.
Your children's eyes will crust over with viral conjunctivitis.
You will receive disappointing news.
Your 1-year old will fall down the stairs, belly-flop fully clothed into your shower, suck the coating off an ibuprofen from a childproof bottle.
Your husband will be insanely busy and thus absent.
You will wear pajamas all week.
You will fall hopelessly behind in all housework.

What would you like to do?
1. Run away
2. Endure the week
3. Hibernate (recommended)
4. Check yourself into institution

I choose-----number two! Big surprise!

And yet, even when weeks go as they do sometimes, and even when--every time I glance in the mirror I see an unkempt, messy face looking back at me--even when things are "not ideal," a week is better lived than not. Near the end of winter, hibernation often feels like it would have been a great idea. What better option than to curl up and cover yourself over with leaves like a perennial mulched and waiting for spring?

Tonight found me first singing harmony with Dora the Explorer's mailbox as I folded clothes with one hand and held runny baby Elspeth with the other. I managed to shout Spanish commands at a gate on the TV along with Merry who has resided in high state on the couch for the last week or so. Later I scooped up macaroni and cheese while singing Chicago's If You Leave Me Now. Merry held her milk glass in the air. "Cheers!" she said. "Cheers to getting out of the house tomorrow!" Elspeth, puffy red eyes and all, did her best to toast with her orange plastic sippy cup. So, no, it hasn't been a week of culture and sophistication. It has been a week of dirty tissues, sticky faces, and unpleasant snufflings and snorts during the night. But the week is almost over.

But hibernation? No. I wouldn't have missed the lovely occasional brightnessess in a week of homebound sickness. Strong coffee, for instance. Lots of strong coffee, which is now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, good for you. Hurrah! Like dark chocolate, another wonderful thing that is good for me!

Sickness equals good reading times with the girls. Merry is reading #95 of the Boxcar Children series, which is truly an abomination. Outfits are catalogued in great detail ("Violet was wearing a flour sack paired cunningly with an umbrella as a hat. . .), as are meal choices ("Benny ordered a grilled fishhead on rye with ketchup and fried rat tongue"). But it is nice to snuggle beside her in bed and read.

Elspeth has slept a great deal, and when she is awake she just wants to snuggle.

And I am inherently worthwhile, even in my pyjamas.

Reading Saint Francis and the Sow reminds me of this. I do not feel like a sow, though I do suckle Elspeth regularly. However, if Saint Francis found beauty and spirituality in a sow, I think my chances are pretty good overall.
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image from www.wikipedia.org
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Saint Francis and the Sow
Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessing of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and
blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of the sow.

--read and enjoyed from A Child's Anthology of Poetry, Edited by Elizabeth Hauge Sword, 1995

February Makes Me Quetch; Oh, for the Open-Tide!

Translation:
Febuary makes me groan; oh, for the young springtime!

Open-tide literally is translated as "early spring, the time when buds open" (Sperling 105).

Isn't that lovely?

But take care, while tripping giddily through such springtime finery, not to pluck and devour the pissabed!

That's sheer fadoodle! Or, sheer nonsense! (Good guesses, M & kjr.)

--Source of poplollies: Poplollies & Bellibones / A Celebration of Lost Words by Susan Kelz Sperling, Konecky & Konecky 1981*

GUESS: What does PISSABED mean? Guess below; answers in tomorrow's daily Poplolly.

*Click on S. Kelz, above, for source for picture and NPR interview.
Source of "redbud" picture: Autumnridgenursery.com