A Note to South Africa

Hello Out There!

Karaduck, are you reading all the way out in South Africa? How are you? I think about you! Is it warm? Is the work good?

Merry asked me who my special friend was when I was little and I said, "Well, you know her now. . .she was just here. . ."

Funny to think of the long evenings spent at your house, eating wedges of Cadbury and digestive biscuits and pickles. Funny to think of our conversations about boys and teachers. . .funny now that I am telling my six year old about you, whom she knows, but not as I know you.

I miss you!

Misdiagnosed

I think I'd better share with everyone the happy news of my misdiagnosis.

I am still pregnant (they were right on that account, and still right, as the kicking within asserts).

I do not, however, as far as midwife #2 and I can see, have PUPPPs. Only incredibly dry skin. Hallelujah. So everyone may now cease feeling pity for poor me, since I am not poor at all but own lots of Twinings English Breakfast Tea.

I have a sort of frenzied energy still, but in spurts, an energy that led me to reorganize kitchen cabinets and pull off pieces of wallpaper in our "butler's pantry" today. (Thinking it might be nice bright, traffic-cone orange.) Also I've taken to eating two smallish but not modest bowls of ice-cream every night: one dreamsicle orange and vanilla, one Dutch chocolate with peanuts. Martin kindly inquired whether I'd care for two spoons, but I limit myself to one. One spoon, two bowls.

My children are happy and sweet, Beatrix kicks but is not a nuisance, we read newly found Shirley Hughes books from the library all day and did not fall on our icy front steps. Looming recession or no, clementines were on sale and the tea kettle's water is almost free. The creek is frozen white, books fill our house, the mice are absent. I have, at the moment, no complaints at all. I hope you too enjoy all life's small happinesses this evening.

PS. Yes, the Elaine Society (our chapter, the only chapter named thus) has been officially launched. It is tons of fun and only goes to prove there is great strength in numbers (at least of people who like, for the most part, to be positive). One meeting down and a blog launched, we are on our way to tapping into the great energy which so often alludes full-time parents but which we all dream about and in our better moments achieve.

Snowy, Snowy Day

I love the book by Ezra Jack Keats about the little boy on the snowy, snowy day. Seeing his peaked hood and silent grey footprints brings back my childhood. And today is indeed snowy. I finally tackled the debacle that is our back porch today (precoffee, too): left Martin clattering about making eggs for the girls and ventured into the cold to sweep up spilled precomposting coffee grounds. The back porch felt absolutely freezing--indeed the coffee grounds in our compost bowl were frozen solid--but when I stepped out to our balcony (a romantic sounding name for what is a basic, dirty platform), balmy winds greeted me.

What to say? How baffling! Turns out I enjoyed being witness to the three minutes or so of balmy winds as two weather storms collided. And now the creek, the bare arms of the trees, the bright orange splash of our neighbor's playplace, covers quickly with snow.

Yesterday, I finally whipped out my blunt scissors and wire cutters and harvested all the dried herbs in our sunroom. A large basket overflows with roses, lavender, feverfew, thyme: echoes from the hot summer. . .I crumbled huge bunches of genovese and lemon basil into Ziplocks, gently eased crisp spearmint leaves into bags. The scent was so overwhelming it made me almost dizzy and a little nauseous.

I finished the evening of what had turned into an exhausting but lovely day (morning at IKEA with two children!) with a late-night chapter of my current escape book, Under the Tuscan Sun, where the owners of an idyllic villa eat immoral quantities of cheese and build stone walls and find hidden aqueducts. Well, I may have a runny-nosed child and a snowy sky, but I glean what I can: a sudden flight of blackbirds outside my window, the harvesting of basil in January.

Losing My Head

This is something I am becoming quite adept at lately. That is, losing my head: losing all sense of perspective in the face of a pot of beans I don't really want to eat, or my husband's request that I watch two extra children for most of the day while he has cream tea with colleagues at the local teahouse.

This is not a feminine affectation to win pathetic interest from my spouse. To prove it:


PUPPPs are back. I am not referring to sweet little doggies-in-the-window. Today my midwife swiped the heart-beat gook from my uterus and announced, "Looks like you've got the beginnings of PUPPPs there." I looked up and responded: "I think I'll throw myself into a fire," which is precisely what I began mumbling in the middle of the night when I was pregnant with Merry and covered with scabby, red, flushed, itchy bumps. Talk about adding insult to injury. Look, you're a hippo; look, you're a hippo with a highly inflamed rash all over your lower body!

According to Heather Brannon, MD, and according to Merry's midwife: "Thankfully, PUPPP does not usually affect subsequent pregnancies." PUPPPs occurs in 1% of pregnant women. I can not as yet get a book published but I have had PUPPPs twice. My friend Lindsay's sensible friend, upon finding she had been exposed to poison ivy, arrived home, scratched open her skin and sprayed in bleach. This is horrifying but somewhat understandable when you have had a rash like PUPPPs.

So yes, the PUPPPs are official, and so are my bursts of insanity. I sincerely hope Martin has a big umbrella and that my storms don't get any worse.

Today

Attacked: Freezer. Pools of frozen water hiding undefinables. Endless frozen black bananas: never will become bread.

Reward: Two English muffins slathered generously with Christmas Nutella.

Elsepth: Watching Wiggles on repeat.

Merry: At school, learning to read.

Laundry: In progress.

Thinking of starting a club called "The Elaine Society," after my great-aunt Elaine, who, upon the death of her husband and her own encroaching old age, went wild with energy, writing and illustrating books, launching a museum, driving like a maniac and somehow stayed alive.

Purpose of The Elaine Society: To remind we women that we are kick-ass, whether we are shoveling ice from our freezers or writing books, changing diapers or wielding power drills. Or (hugely pregnant) eating Nutella.

Back Home and Totally but Happily Neurotic

It is good to be back home.

Three weeks took us to Houston, Texas, and then to the Hopi Reservation, Flagstaff, and Pheonix, Arizona.

Merry enjoyed the diverse experiences of Texas (dressing up, being an adult at lunches out, the Nutcracker, plays) and Arizona (snow tubing, hiking Cathedral Rock in Sedona, eating enough dirty snow to send her stomach round the bend). Martin and I enjoyed fantastic Tex-Mex and lots of shopping in Texas (not to mention lots of relaxed, good times with his family) and then amazing Asian food and hiking (Martin skied but I am not allowed) in Arizona (and of course my generous and loving family). Elspeth pushed both her cousins but only the cousin in Arizona pushed her back. She weathered the endless airport travel with a monkey on her back that straps to a harness that ends in a leash in my hand.

Best of all, there was lots of family. Classes were over, grades were in, and we were free to enjoy our loved ones.

And it is SO good to be home. After we finally piled out of a friend's car with our endless Christmas luggage, we turned on the heat (it was freezing), the girls went to bed, and I began putting away Christmas decorations. The tree that seemed so lovely before we left for holidays suddenly seemed redundant and tired; I stripped it down and began packing away compulsively. And then in the days that have followed I've attacked closets, hidden shameful places, old medicine cabinets. . .The night before Martin's classes started I threw a fit and then he and I moved furniture and rearranged until almost midnight. Crazy.

I think part of this wild rush is that suddenly Beatrix kicks just around the corner. She's imminent now, and my unpainted kitchen and the excess and the disorganization has sent me into a tizzy. (Being in my sister's super-organized, stream-lined, turns-on-a-dime home only increased this frenzy). Before Christmas I assured myself that there was still the class I was teaching, still vacation, still so much before the third daughter was even near. And now suddenly I'm huge and Beatrix is busy kicking and I am full of frenzied energy to fix broken hooks, buy huge organizing Ziplocks, and clear the shelves for yet another set of clothes. I must bag my dried herbs! I must move Elspeth into a bed! I must teach Merry to read!

The basement looms large, as does the kitchen which they tell me I am not allowed to paint and the furniture I am not allowed to move by myself. The back porch is filling up with huge bags of inexplicable stuff bound for the thrift store or the trash.

Meanwhile I feel flushed with good intentions: early, organized breakfasts, schedules, hot meals, folded laundry, books read, early tea/dinner for the girls, quality time with Martin, disciplined, clean children (i.e., NOT the wild dash through Walmart, shouting in guttural tones at Merry to tackle Elspeth, who was on a beeline to depart the Great Satan, as Martin calls that time-warp of a place--I'd gone there to buy giant Ziplocks and printer cartridges and pegs for our chaotic workshop pegboard, among other miscellany), 0 tolerance for unwanted clutter and old bill stubs.

And I feel pretty happy despite the fact that I may never live up to these grandiose expectations. Yes, I am happy to be among my plants in grey-winter Pennsylvania, close to my friends whom I will see at some point when the dust clears, surrounded by endless tea, good books, my own computer and the drama of my Netflix cue, and the company of my children.

A freshly painted kitchen would just put the icing on my cake. Anyone (who's allowed!) up for spackling?

Beatrix, On Her Way

One, two, three, little wonders (I'm not the third--I mean the one in my uterus).

Merry, Elsepth, Beatrix on her way.

So the girls will have yet one more sister. We're working on a Little Women scenario, it seems.

Poor, poor third child. I keep forgetting I'm pregnant with her until I look in the mirror. Here, I remember, NO PREGNANCY PICTURES! Better take my own.

Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993

Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993
by Jane Kenyon

On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:

"We're descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?"

God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

While not prompted by Kim to "guest host" on her blog, I thought I would nevertheless update her (no doubt)anxious Web audience as to our activities of late.

Last night, Kim went to bed at 7pm and slept for 12 hours.

I'm on the home stretch of the fall semester (less than two weeks remain), and all I can think about is gardening.

It is snowing. On again, off again.

Merry is almost six. She's a big help around the house (a couple mornings ago she took Elspeth downstairs, changed her diaper, and got her breakfast), and outside the house: On Saturday, she helped me move a bunch of bricks around ... uh, more gardening misadventures.

She said at dinner last night, "I've always loved the smell of Daddy's breath."

Elspeth's verbal ability increases daily. She loves to sing, and remembers countless tunes. Now she approximates the words, too ("The Bobble tells so"). Also, she's chewing on things she ought not to chew on. Just today, I found her knawing a AA battery, and Kim discovered her chomping at a DVD (from the library).

~

Moving on. 'Tis the season for your favorite radio station to give up its usual playlist in order to spin endless covers of Christmas carols and songs. I mean, really, what Advent would be complete without hearing "Happy Christmas (War is Over)," "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas," and Amy Grant's loathsome rendition of "Sleigh Ride" ad nauseum until the big day arrives?

And, of course, you won't be able to darken the door of a Target or Gap without a smattering of holiday cheer via the intercom speakers--the better to put you in a mood for buying. (I know whenever I hear "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," I can't help but head on over to Electronics, or pick up a pair of straight-leg khakis.

I stumbled upon this irreverant (read at your own risk) roasting of popular and sacred Christmas music: The Tris McCall Report: Christmas Abstract.

And in honor of all this, I thought I'd publish my top five Christmas carols. In no particular order:

--In the Bleak Midwinter
--I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
--Good King Wenceslas (is this truly a carol?)
--The First Noel
--God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

The first three are often conspicuously absent from church hymnals. Why? Wenceslas isn't my favorite tune, but the lyrics are powerful and probably guilt-inducing. I can see why we don't sing it much. Who wants to be reminded that, "Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing/Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing"?

You won't find that one on rotation at Wal-Mart.

Honorable mention to Hark, The Herald Angels Sing, The Holly and the Ivy, and O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Tho it is oversung).

My least favorite--I know this will be contentious: Silent Night, Away in a Manger, O Holy Night (would be better if not so bombastically performed), We Three Kings.

I invite you to lay into me for my choices--or better yet, present your own Top 5.

And for further amusement, this link to proofs for Santa's ability/inability to deliver the goods: The Physics of Santa Claus.

Where Have I Been?

This is a good and proper question. I am not sure myself.

Oh, but one small piece of news: Newest Kim and Martin offspring is due end of March. In one week, the mystery of gender will be revealed. . .any guesses? So far the general trend is BOY but since it's 50/50 every time. . .who knows?

And who knows why I preach active verbs to my students and then string along four passive verbs in a row?

Laziness, folks.

Sorry it's been so long. There's not been extra time falling from heaven lately, and no extra time seeping up through the earth--time, much used. Martin continues terribly busy. A fat speckled bird sits outside my window on the bare branch of the walnut tree; a heavy frost shines on our grass; the bird's throat trembles with clicks and whistles. . .Martin's in Philadelphia but the girls and I sit snug in our warm house (I hear Merry: "All the girls are dressed in red calico. . ." and Elspeth wades through her long skirt patting her chest: "Dress, dress;" a peice of yarn knotted in her hair). I must remember to lift the rosemary and tote it indoors. . . .

Rain, Tardy Autumn, Clandestine Chocolate Consumption

This past weekend we bopped down to West Virginia to join my friend Kara and a passel of good people in the midst of tents and campfire smoke and amazing food (our last meal before departure consisted of falafel, two kinds of homemade hummus, olives and cheese, and pita bread.) The girls revelled in their first camping trip. Elspeth, absolutely filthy and stinky, ran around the campfire in a way that put ants in my feet soles; Merry threw herself into fire-making and delighted in her first real tent sleep in her Tinkerbell sleeping bag.

Down in that fairly cool hollow near Maryland, the leaves had actually begun to celebrate autumn. Our spirits sagged as we drove back north, into the heat, and Martin remarked dolefully, "The leaves are just drying up and turning brown. I'm afraid we won't have much of an autumn this year."

I am hoping Martin is dead wrong, though the heat has been oppressive and depressing this far into October. As in August, I have been closing windows and curtains in an attempt to capture the relative cool of the night in our house during the day. GLOOMY. I have dragged myself outside for brief spells in the garden. The overwhelming, sharp smell of cilantro gone-to-seed that I harvested this morning almost put me over the edge.

Brussel sprouts cling unnoticed to their stalks; tomatoes rot on their vine. I bypass those in favor of last yellow roses, a bucketful of feverfew, a few lonely stems of lavender. I will not be sorry to see the zinnias blacken and die, dropping their seeds into the ground for next year's spring. The sunflowers are drooping and picked-over by birds; soon the birds will look instead for handfuls of feed tossed into the shelter of their wee houses.

Our yard shows a small dusting of golden maple leaves, but the show this autumn so far is sad and anticlimactic. "Get used to it," Martin says grumpily, throwing new wood on the crackling blaze of angst, "We live in a warming world."

But wait--I bear great tidings. This afternoon, rain pelted from a dark sky. The girls and I stood in the open doorway, jumping deliciously at claps of thunder, watching the rain sweep down our street in sheets. And tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and so on, are forecasted cool, cooler, and cold. Never have I been so excited about pulling out sweaters at last. It jolly well better not be just here for two days again, either. Go away, gulf stream! Begone!

I celebrate now with a bowl of chocolate cookies, eaten secretly, upstairs in my office. Out of my window the walnut leaves are yellowing; the sky is full of cloud. Come frost, come candle-days, come shake-the-window wind. We're ready this time.

Many Doings

Here is an aging horse, bent with weary time, with his blushing young charges.

Dear, dearie me, I say like Papa Panov. Where has the time gone?

This morning Elspeth and I tottered down our rickety steps and began to save the poor potted plants on the deck, pruning geraniums mercilessly in some effort to save them for overwintering in the house. The weather reins warm for October still, soaring happily into the 80's during the day, but a possible freeze shivers in the near future, perhaps Monday.
____________________________________

As a white candle
In a holy place,
So is the beauty
Of an aged face.
(Joseph Campbell: The Old Woman)

Every time we visit Grandpa and Grandma Irene, I am struck by this feeling: This is the way things were meant to be! With the very old and ill beside the young and slightly wild with energy! Elspeth brings Grandpa to life, a man who sleeps much of the day, medicated for Parkinson's. His life is filled with the gentleness of my Grandma Irene, who cares for him daily with humor and tenderness. Workers from Hospice drop by on a regular basis.

When Merry visits, she plays nurse, bringing Grandpa his medicine and bolting out hymns at his bedside in her powerful child's voice. Elspeth touches his face, waves coyly, and eats beside him at the table. When we drive out the short three hours to Ohio, everyone seems to think that we are doing my Grandpa a favor--but they are mistaken. We receive far more from that house than we could ever give--we come away touched by grace that reaches beyond understanding, grace that is patient and truly kind, and at its very center throbs with love. I feel sorry that this is not part of our dailiness, this sharing, and I chalk it up to the imperfect sort of world we dwell in, where those we love are scattered like autumn leaves across a wide expanse, where those we long to touch daily are out of reach.

_______________
So last weekend we visited with Grandpa, Grandma Irene, and my mother, ate inordinate amounts of cake and pie, and arrived home in time for my class to troop over to our house on Monday evening. While I have certainly enjoyed the students in my class, the responsibility of a mere weekly class weighs on my schedule in a rather heavy way, limiting me from staying over the weekend at my Grandpa's, for instance. How I chafe against responsibility of the scheduled, inflexible sort!

In other news, I am considering knocking holes in the kitchen to let in more sunlight. We have no money to hire adequate help and I am slightly terrified of knocking out 100-year-old plaster walls and masonry, a fear that Martin believes is warranted and present for a purpose. (I will not knock holes in the walls, I will not knock holes in the walls.) But I am very, very tempted, especially as I spend almost all day in the kitchen, and it is practically the darkest room in the whole house. I cannot say whether the midwinter doldrums might not press me to insane measures and the swinging of a sledgehammer. . .

Is it the mellowing weather? The leaves on the ficus tree fading to yellow? The walnut tree dropping its bulbous fruit? The blood-red cardinal craning its neck over a fading sunflower? I'm missing old but lovely friends: Tim and Lindsay, I dreamt about you last night; Kurt Cole, wish we could see your brave face. Why are you all, all of you, so very far away?

Embracing the Present

Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present, which very few of us do. --La Bruyere: Les Caracteres

Be a Good Little Monkey and TRY TO STAY OUT OF MISCHIEF

Things I thought I would never type into my Googler:

Brussel Sprout Recipes
White frothy bugs on strawberries
Remove Crayon from Computer Screen

Look, we don't have much of value in our house. When guilt presses about 'having too much stuff' we play the house-burning game: "So the house burns down while we're gone. So what? What do we really lose?" I think of our family heirloom quilts, our photos maybe, and perhaps all the dried herbs, spices, and freezer full of apple treats I've slaved over for the winter. Maybe our good pots and my Wustoff knife. Our TV is super dinky; our books can be replaced; our furniture has mostly been collected at the side of the road or from thrift stores (ditto for our clothes--not from the roadside, but from Goodwill!).

The only things we have doled out a good amount of money for (as far as our standards go) is our blue Subaru and my computer, and maybe our used piano. You may remember that Merry covered our blue Subaru's hood with scratches fairly recently, pretending it was a team of Laura Ingall's horses. That left the used piano and the computer.

This morning Martin jumped out of bed at 4:30 in the morning in order to accompany his group of freshmen to DC's Holocaust museum. It's a long day, and he won't return until near midnight tonight. This left me in a bit of a bind since the girls have been ill lately and my night class falls tonight. My first plans for childcare fell through and so I finagled things so one of my students will take the first hour and I'll arrive late, after putting the little one to bed and receiving good friend Sally to sit with the girls.

There is one problem about the little ones. Merry is a dream child despite small bouts with eye-rolling. Elspeth is a real joy, but she is half monkey. Truly; I kid you not. I assume this monkey gene comes from my side of the family.

Yesterday we were spending a relatively quiet sick day at home when we heard great crashes from the piano. Martin said, "We've got a little Stravinsky on our hands!"

"I prefer a little Chopin," I countered, and then I went in to enjoy the sweet spectacle of my smallest child flexing her little fingers on our upright Yamaha. What I found was Elspeth, grasping the top of the piano and trouncing with her little feet up and down the old black and whites.

We took precautions, such as closing the key cover, but Elspeth is not to be so easily deterred. This morning I turned my head from writing comments on an essay to find that she had climbed the piano like a flight of stairs and was practically perched on the tippy top, where she knocked off the African drum and what-not on top.

Please note I include only her wildest escapades. There are many, many others not listed here that keeps me on my hands and knees not in prayer but in tidy-up.

I scrapped my comments for that moment and proceeded to a much-needed shower. Now, I do not often indulge myself in showers, a fact that my friends probably mourn. Many days finding me gritting my teeth, swiping my hair into a braid, and continuing as before. But today was a shower day, and I really needed one.

It was a lovely bathe, and Elspeth was curiously quiet and content the entire duration. Which leads me to this:

"When children stand quiet, they have done some ill" (George Herbert: Jacula Prudentum).

Hair wrapped in towel, I found my little monkey-child kneeling on my desk, crayon and pen clamped in tight fists, employing my LCD computer screen as an easel.

I need go no further except to advise that if you have a good little monkey who is alas, often very curious, the best remedy for a scribbled computer screen is to buff it, very slowly and patiently, and doubtlessly with a great deal of fear and trembling, with a soft cloth.

If you do not have any little monkeys, think, then, of all you miss, poor soul. How DO you employ time when there are no small daily disasters? I pity you, truly. Borrow my little Elspeth at some point and see the light of a truly exciting existence.