Everybody needs a little time away. . .I heard her say (Chicago style)

Martin and I have been married ten and a half years now. We love being with one another, and when Martin's gone, I often begin saying something truly stupid or want to sing a song in falsetto and there's nobody around to laugh. He is my best friend. And like best friends, we always benefit from a little time away from one another. You know, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and all that rot.

It's not that we don't miss each other--I look forward to seeing him every day he's gone--but it's just that we do fine without one another. And I'm finally to the point where I don't go into a blind panic alone with the three children, though I was SO happy, after three days, to pick up my good mother from the airport. We have been eating junk--hot dogs and Sonic burgers and Sam's Club samples and chocolate cupcakes and Target popcorn (the children's clothes are stained with cherry Icee)--though tonight we went into detox mode and steamed broccoli and carrots for dinner.

When Martin calls I greet him with a jolly, And how was YOUR day? To which he answers, GRRRREAT. . .I graded (today it was in the hundreds of) essays. Basically he just hunkers down around a table with huge bowls of candy and bottles of water (for the record, he's been eating much better than we have and stopped after only two Starburst the first day!) and reads essays for eight hours straight. After hours he and his buckaroos stroll through Louisville finding good drinks and eats and telling writing/teaching anecdotes. And he and I have made a pact to send out manuscripts to at least five journals while he's gone (it's supposed to be one-two a night but I've been lagging after my mother's arrival. Who wants to spend time staring at a computer when you can be with your mother?)

When Merry was tiny, Martin took off for a month two summers in a row--once for a fellowship, and once to make us some money. That was a LITTLE long--long enough to get into my own swing of things and go into culture shock when he returned. A week is nothing. Merry asked why he had gone and I said, "To make money for your playhouse," which seemed to please her. And don't tell him, but a week is just long enough to enjoy a little girl time--though four of us in the bathtub at once was a bit too close quarters for me.

wonder woman

delicate 'The Fairy' rose in the back garden, near Thistle Hill

Yesterday was a bit of a low point: overwhelmed me, with sicky two-year old clinging to her at every turn, paralyzed because I realized that my driver's licence was expired--trying to clean the house for company arriving Sunday. I did okay, mind you; we went on a walk, watched Anne of Avonlea in sleeping bags, picked strawberries and sugarsnap peas from the garden. I even planted the peppers, beans, and a few herbs. I sent off something to an agent and was rejected four hours later. The children ate meals and I drank a whole beer. I did okay, but did not live up to my power-house ideals.

Today, however, we rolled out of bed--(all of us. With Martin gone, I was looking forward to spread-eagling, but the girls, like ground water, fill holes and in this case my bed). And then we strapped into the car, picked up some disgusting food and coffee at a drive-through, and arrived at the DMV BEFORE it opened. Just two men who were also waiting and the four of us females. I was in and out in fifteen minutes. Then we hit the park, then we went to the grocery, and now we are home. I am ON FIRE.

What next in my amazing day? Empty the dehumidifiers and take out the trash? Change the sheets? Do some laundry? Juggle the china? The world is my oyster!

Funny what things make you feel like a superhero.

Who's Driving this Tractor?

Due to rain and company, Martin was unable to complete the yard work before he left for Louisville.

I figure it's time for the kids to start earning their supper.

S u mm e r Sammies

One of my favorite summer pasttimes 'round these here parts: driving through the wooded hills.
The hope is that an airconditioned car jetting through absolute beauty will stir love between siblings.

I think all my post titles will be "Summer Something-s" because as I said in the previous entry, I am lazy about writing in this Outside Season.

After three days of rain I returned with a mixture of reluctance and relief to the BAD bed where I'd been cutting down weeds and planting perennials--and lovely-o, if it wasn't the easiest job ever to cut into the soft earth and plop those fellows in. As I headed to a pile of weeds I'd cut down before the rain, Sammy the Snake, (or one of his/her many offspring) slithered a portion of his green and yellow body and startled the stuffing out of me. After some seconds I was able to locate his two black eyes, staring at me--signifying what, exactly?--curiosity, coldness, warmth of friendship?--It's hard to tell with snakes. That's the thing about Sammy--I find him staring at me from odd places, and then I know he's been staring at me for possible ages, and I've just now noticed him. It gives me the creeps.

Sammy, or one of the Sammies, appears in the most startling places (by nature of snakeness, he is inherently startling no matter where he appears). Mostly he appears to me and then the rest of my family mock me when they hear my frenzied squeals echoing across the garden. Truthfully I do not mind Sammy, or the Sammies, in the garden, since they are garters, but I do not appreciate the quality of surprise that always accompanies their appearances. I coax aloud as I walk past his favorite compost pile, "All right, then, Sammy, here I come, so don't just jump out at me. I don't mind you being here but I just don't want you to scare the liver out of me. Okay? So here I come" [Here I whistle and make other silly noises to encourage him to hide].

As you might recall, Martin the Tenderhearted saved the first Sammy from being flattened by our handy-man's pick-up several years ago. It was the the height of August and the vegetables were oversized monsters, a snake heaven. Martin tenderly carried S. Snake into the garden, where the girls stroked Sammy's long brown body before Martin let him into the compost pile. So we have a fondness and relationship with the original Sammy and, theoretically, with his/her offspring.

The year after Sammy's introduction to our front garden, it was late spring and I was weeding Thistle Hill when I disturbed what appeared to be a nest of little Sammies, sending me into a miniconiption as I watched the little serpentine babies wiggle away through the brush. And ever since then our garden has apparently become a hotbed of snake love and procreation.
Thistle Hill, looking down to the badminton spot and fire ring

Like I said, garters are good for the garden; we have no rodent problems, and I am thankful as long as--EEEK--they just stop appearing in odd places in proximity to my bare toes.

A random Columbine for you

lazy update

On TV: Kipper the dog in green boots, a magic frog, a puddle, and an elephant. Beside me: Bea, opening the mail. On a chair: Elspeth, in frilly blue seersucker dress and flowered hat. Far away: most of you. Close enough: Martin playing racquetball at the U and Merry sitting in a classroom. In the garden: sugarsnap peas, plump strawberries, silky pink roses, tiny green tomatoes, sunflower seedlings. In my head: not much. In my stomach: good coffee and brownsugary oatmeal.

Such are the summers. Not much ticking around in my head except maybe a ceiling fan. Plenty of shite to spread on the garden beds, plenty of dirt in my toenails, plenty fresh fruit and herbs bolting to seed in soaring heat. The children naked in the paddling pool. Pressing concerns include: what to eat for dinner, sand tracked through the house, who's napping with the kids, what pass to buy at the pool.

In other news, Martin's off to Louisville for a week soon to sample good bourbon and grade APs (and make some good money for a fence!), Merry has one scant week left at school, a visit from my mother is on the horizon, and I got a copy of Cold Mountain Review with MY ESSAY PRINTED IN IT! Nice to hold it in my hands, and full of good prose and poetry by other people I've never met. I'll include a link when their site is updated.

early summer bliss

Knock, knock

Just a few minutes ago I left Beatrix in her crib, happy and very sleepy. I lingered for a moment, looking at her sweet face with the covers pulled up to her chin. "Cookie," she said, "Morning."

"You're going to have cookies in the morning?" I asked.

"Imm, hmm."

"That's a funny joke."

On cue, Bea continued, "Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

We went through a series of knock, knock jokes in which she listed many of our friends around here, who in a sense are family: Ben, E-tan, Berto, Cat-ine, Don [John], Nancy, Sa--ee [Sally]. . .She even included Rosie the dog, among others. She kept wanting to list them again and again, in a sort of delighted way that reminded me of a prayer.

I felt so happy listening to her spill out the richness of these names, and I am reminded to be grateful for the community in which we live. Elspeth had her preschool end-of-the-year concert tonight, and it was sweltering in the Catholic church, but there was a sense of "all-being-in-this-together" and people were happy though sweaty. Toward the end of the songs and the ceremony I felt a sudden flood of sadness that I had no family close by to see my children growing up. They often visit, of course, but I had no grandparents or aunties or uncles sitting around me, focused on Elspeth, on the celebration of her growing up. It is a sadness I suppose I thought I let go of in the face of the reality of my nomadic family, but it passes over me now and then, as it did tonight as I was surrounded by good people with their good families.

Thankfully, the legacy of my own childhood continues for my three daughters: the support and knit of community. There are people here who care and nurture and even tell off my own children; I complain, grieve, and share all the good things that come through my life. For this I am truly grateful. Elspeth and Merry and Bea call many women "aunt" and many men "uncle" and they are caught in many hands, accepting with the same love my own blood-family, as the girls and I say.

So today, there were new tomatoes planted and potted, manure spread, late johnny-jump-ups nestled into soil, strawberries from our garden shared among friends--and there was lots of love to go around. Practical love, like the love our dear friends showed us by taking our girls so Martin and I could go out, and constant, unsaid love--the river that flows around our ankles, reminding us that life is full of cool winds and goodness.

in nine minutes

So I've got nine minutes to tell you everything and I am weary, weary, weary of going all day.

But I'd like to bequeath the following story to my dear sister Heather, since she seems to take particular relish in disgusting or unusual stories--and this one is gross.

Saturday morning: bright, clear, lovely. Martin and I and the two younger girls are at the university's old historical building for a meeting--we climb up the circular staircases to a room lit with the filtered brilliance of stained glass. After the meeting concludes we let the girls frolic across the well-tended lawn on the way to the car. We laugh at the brazen squirrels and the way the girls chase them up trees. All in all, it is a very pastoral scene.

Martin notices that Bea has stopped to talk to something in the grass, and I note that as she walks away down the lawn toward the sidewalk, she seems to have a long piece of twine wrapped around her leg. I suppose it is landscape twine or some oddly overlooked piece of trash. She kicks her little sandaled foot to free herself. Again and again she tries to disentangle herself. At the same time Martin meanders up to where Bea was conversing with the something in the grass, and we see it at the same time: a matted mass of grey fur marked with blood. And the twine around Bea's ankle? Squirrel intestine!

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

Who knew squirrel entrails were so long? Great Scott!

After we sanitize Bea's foot and strip off her sandals, she asks from her car seat: "Squirrel?"

Martin says, "The squirrel was sleeping, honey."

There is a pause and then Martin turns to me. "Who wants a cookie?"

There's your nine-minute story, all I have time for this evening but certainly only one of the wild and woolly things that happened this weekend.

Over and out.

Artist Elspeth

This is the first in the EEC (Elspeth Evelyn Cockroft) Art Show.

Elspeth is four. To those of you who know her or keep up with her endless antics on Wazoo Farm, you might be surprised to know that Elspeth is the most concentrated artist of all our girls. She literally spends hours drawing, and she draws EVERYWHERE.

I do mean Elspeth draws everywhere. On the walls, on desks, on my computer, on herself, in gravel and woodchips when there is nothing else, even in the syrup at the bottom of her ice-cream bowl.

She creates totally bizarro compositions; sometimes she tells me what is going on in the pictures but sometimes she just shrugs as if that is unimportant. Once I asked, "What is that, Elspeth?" and she said right away, "It's ART, Mommy." So there you are. I am called a plebeian by my four-year old daughter.

Elspeth scribbles furiously through stacks and stacks of scratch paper and then shows us these wild color and shape combinations. She is almost compulsive in the way she works, and we have made sure she has drawing stations all over the house: by my desk, a whole counter downstairs, by her bed.

The other day, before we realized she needed paper and pencil by her bed, she covered the wall above her pillow with a totally wild pen sketch. Martin sighed and said, "If that girl does not become an artist, I will be really disappointed."

Right now, she is brushing her teeth and drawing a person with bubblefeet at the same time. Keep tuned for the three-eyed creature--it's my favorite.

today

Today I moved furniture all day.

I moved desks, lamps, books, bookcases, cords, couch and chairs, tables. . .Merry helped. And I moved a piano all by myself! Huzzah for me!

This tendency to move furniture on a regular basis runs in my family--apparently my grandmother was a regular rearranger. Perhaps it's the gypsy blood; now that we're finally settled somewhere, I at least have to play at moving.

I've done heavy furniture moving even while 8 months pregnant, under some sort of spell that drove me ever forward, around corners--bend those knees!--and up and down stairs. I started as a child--an old letter to my grandmother from Kenya promises her pictures of my new room arrangement as soon as I got it perfect, and a diagram is eventually attached to one of my missives. I moved furniture around in college even though my roommate, who was very mathy, told me my vision was faulty. But she grudgingly took an end of the bunk bed and we went at it for a couple hours until I realized that she was right. And then we put everything back exactly as it had been before we started and went to sleep. That was my one terrible failure at furniture moving. Since then I've done much better.

I think Merry's caught the bug, because when I mentioned a possible new arrangement for the downstairs rooms, she lit up like a firefly and got that crazy gleam in her eyes. She knows what's fun, my oldest daughter. I usually wait until Martin is out of the house, since the moving stresses him out (he didn't move much as a child--like our blind dog we had as a child he likes to memorize where things are), but the kids are pretty used to it now. Bea did glue herself to my hip for a little while there right after nap--she awakened at a bad time, when the couch was still on its end and the sun room was impassible. So we finished moving the couch into place with Bea holding onto my torso like a little monkey.

Martin came home from sitting all day in the sun at graduation, took one look around, and said, "I guess I should never get used to anything." As if he didn't know that already!

Back to the Garden!

My favorite blue flax. . . .

Today was the first day, since Martin's last grading session, that we spent the majority of the day in the garden. The rain was gone, the sky was huge and clear, and we were more than ready to whip the beloved beds into shape. We have so many more hours to spend there, but it did feel encouraging to see just how much we could accomplish in a day. The first two peonies are blooming; the roses are about to pop;

the clematis is showy and happy;

the lupines are towers of deep blue; the herbs are thick and lush. . .oh, dear, so many happinesses I can't list them all.

With a friend we ate an omelet loaded with chives, oregeno, and basil from our plants, and the girls spent almost all day in a secret place under the forsythia bush.

Glorious.

Out in the Wild Blue Yonder

Way out there, somewhere, is the order I crave. Order in my head, in the house, in my schedule, in dailiness, in the fabric of my life. Order in the Kim!

Truly, I am getting to the point again where enough is enough, and I long to fill big black garbage bags full of all our belongings, whip up the tops so no-one can see what they're losing, and pile the load in the old Texas pick-up. Bound for never-never-land. Then I will usher in a new order.

In this new pristine place there will be no furniture that is not in good condition and is not sat in regularly. There will be no discarded photos pressed with the fingerprints of children. I will have three candles which burn always. One vase full of flowers that are not stinking or crisping at the edges. Exactly the right number of plates and silverware. No mysterious file names on the computer. No bits and pieces (mismatched socks, notes, book pages, old toothbrushes, play food) under the girls' beds. Five plants which do not drop sap and are watered like clockwork by the invisible servant. No furry tupperware in the fridge.

No fifty or more mismatched socks. I am NOT joking, by the way. No lonely shoes without mates, no more dresses, purses, or curtains put together with safety pins, no more freezer half-full of ice-flow, no more unmarked items in the freezer, no more pants without buttons and without hope of ever receiving buttons.

My head will be well-filed. I will know how to drive back from the airport every time. I will not continually make wrong turns on the way to the Mennonites in Morgantown, West Virginia. I will be able to access faces and match them with names. I will not ask embarassing things, like if someone is pregnant when they "are just fat" (according to the person I asked), and I will not verbally mistake somebody's husband for somebody's son (yes, this also happened). I will know always when to shut up. I will remember events in my life, like when the children walked, when I went on trips and with whom, how old I am, when the children were born, and what was said on a specific subject. I will not ever spell pom-pilot, "palm-pilot," or get illnesses mixed up when asking for prayer (especially when the former is an STD and the latter is a gastrointestinal matter).

Ah, yes, order. I will have my ducks in a row. My Is dotted and my Ts crossed. I will always send you cards on your significant days. I will rename myself to celebrate this new stage of Kim. I will go by the name Greta, which sounds like the name of a well-ordered, in-control person.

I will be miserable, but I will always know where to find the tape and the dental floss. And isn't that a fine switch?

Too-Fast Visits

"It went so fast," I said to my friend Kara as I dropped her off at the airport at five-thirty this morning.

"It always does," she said, and that is true every time about a visit of a dear friend or family member--the days stretch out ahead of you and suddenly you're standing at the airport giving hugs and wondering when you'll see this dear one again.

Kara and I go way back--all the way back to sixth grade, Mr. Osborne's class, Nairobi, Kenya, when we became fast friends. She is the only friend from that period of my life (or college, for that matter--except Martin, who hangs around constantly) whom I have kept in contact with, but I can't imagine ever falling out of conversation with her.

We puzzle over the way life swings you in such wayward places and in such an unexpected manner. But when I am with her, I feel as though I am the sum of myself, truly still a kid and her best friend even though we've accrued the baggage particular to our own lives, picked up good people and carried them with us, been mapped by the places we have loved, the anger and loss we have encountered, all the efforts we've expended--since we were eleven or twelve and planning our lives under the branches of a favorite tree on a hill in Kenya. And then when I dwell with her again, the quintessential BEING together is the same--easy, natural, irreplaceable, full of grace.

"Look up!" we told Beatrix, and so she did.
--
By the way, Kara, I lost my way on the return trip from the airport, and after such adventures as being on a bizarre business loop with multiple cargo exits, I found my way back home--almost four hours after I had left. I told Martin, "If you ever become me, you will be so confused." But it was worth every wrong turn to spend the extra hour with you in the wee hours of the morning. Thank you for coming, dear friend!

Mother's Day

Brand-new Beatrix, two years ago

Dear Mothers,

I forgot that Mother's Day was this weekend. In fact, somebody called me two days ago and told me his family was going away for Mother's Day weekend; after some argument with him, I checked the calendar only to find that oh, indeed, blast and bomb!--I'd misplaced my mental date and had nothing in the mail.

My mother and mother-in-law, many apologies. To my mother, from whom I inherited my scatter-brained way with dates, I also send excuses hoping she will give a nod at the loins, etc., from which I sprang and understand. To my dear mother-in-law, who remembered me on Mother's Day, I send only apologies. To both I send all my love and gratitude. You both did a fantastic job with your children.
Mom C. and Elspeth, one year ago, Mother's Day.

Mom Cockroft, you molded a treasure of a man--I love him more every day. And I've loved having you in my life for twelve good years.

My Mother & Bea, two years ago

And Mama Mia, thanks to you, I enunciate words like "butter" well and know I should not speak with my mouth full. I never use bad grammar except on purpose. I know how to set a complicated table. I make good eye-contact upon introduction with strangers and clasp a hand without a hint of fish-fingers. I can prepare the house for thirty guests in only forty-five minutes. I can make a party out of a head of lettuce and a home out of little to no money. I hold my head high even when humiliated and know how to make a pretty apology when I book three things for the same time--another two traits you passed down to me. I can laugh uproariously while not under the influence of anything but daily life and enjoyment of a moment. I take action when stressed and mix up my metaphors and colloquialisms. I am closer to appreciating your freezing annual New Year's picnics than I was. I try not to pay too much attention to appearances. I try to dance in church at least a little. I love good people and demand respect from every person because I am innately worthwhile. I can let go. I can eat a whole box of Crunch and Munch in one sitting. I know I should not substitute safety pins for buttons. (Sorry, I still do.) For all these things, and more, I thank my good mother.
Elspeth, two years ago, interacting with her favorite medium

Merry, three years ago

Happy Mother's Day to all you women who nurture and treasure others!