everyday life – Page 63 – A Design So Vast

Monday morning

April 11, 2011

A few things that were on my mind this weekend …

1. Carol Edgarian’s Three Stages of Amazement may be my favorite novel I’ve read in years. It is a beautiful, pitch-perfect story about adulthood and marriage and in exploring the complexities and challenges of both it shows that trying hard and wanting something badly doesn’t keep people from messing up. Edgarian’s characters stagger under the weight of their commitment and responsibility and yearn for the freedom and desire of earlier days but ultimately they tiptoe into a tentative but redemptive embrace of their flawed, rich lives.

2. Laura Munson, whose book This is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness touched many people, is reading in Cambridge on Wednesday April 13th at 7pm. I’m so looking forward to meeting Laura and hope many others will be there.

3. My friend Hilary Levey Friedman told me about a piece of art she has ordered for her new house. First we laughed about how there is very little wall space for art, given how many books we both have. I remembered the Anna Quindlen quote that she “would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think interior decorating consists mostly of building bookshelves.” Then Hilary told me about a wreath she is having made out of book pages. I adore, worship, and covet this idea and can’t wait to see it.

4. Finally, I have a professional page on Facebook. I’d be honored if you would click over and check it out. Asking this makes me more nervous than almost anything else. Thank you to the lovely Social Butterfly Solutions for her help!

my Gracie girl

April 5, 2011

This was one of the most special days of my life. One of our days at Disney, Grace and I snuck away to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We were both spellbound. I have never been somewhere more crowded – honestly. Harry Potter made walking through the Magic Kingdom seem like an amble on a deserted beach. But still…. still. It was absolutely magical. We walked around Hogsmeade, bought a wand, drank Butter Beer, explored Hogwarts castle, and rode twice on the Flight of the Hippogriffs (above, photo taken from car in front of us). I don’t like roller coasters and neither do either of my children (coincidence? perhaps not) but this was a nice, not-scary ride that we went on twice.

In this photo I see sheer joy radiating from Grace. And from me. We were both enchanted by the world of Harry Potter brought to life, but I know that part of the happiness was sharing it with each other, and only each other.

I’m extra aware, lately, of how short the time grows in which Grace will always, without question, choose my company. She wants to be with me all the time. This past weekend, after a Friday sleepover she was tired and weepy on Saturday evening. When Matt and I left she clung to me, crying, asking me not to go. To assuage her, she asked me to list how many nights in a row I’ll be putting her to bed starting on Sunday night. These moments can be intensely frustrating for me, but I try to remember that soon enough I will miss them. I’ll be nostalgic for the time – now – when I am a balm for all of her troubles. For the time – now – when a kiss genuinely helps a bruised knee and an extra cuddle truly does chase away bad dreams.

Sunday morning Grace and I sat in her room and played with her American Girl dolls. From across the room, she said, out of the blue, “Mummy? Did you know that if you don’t use your imagination you lose it?” I was startled and then agreed with her, thanking my own mother and instinct and whatever other influences have contributed to my distinctly under-programmed, free range parenting style.

Then we walked down to the stores a few blocks from us, doing errands, and she happily bounced down the street with her hand in mine. I don’t know how much longer this will last, but I know it’s not that long. In the afternoon, at the park, she kept calling my name, wanting to be sure I watched her do the monkey bars or launch herself into a full flip above the swings, holding the chains. Sometimes it feels like Grace needs me witness something for it to be real. She’s got a wicked, uncanny sense for when my attention wavers, too, and always, always calls me on it. Often with tears. This, too, can be daunting: I try to focus on her as much as I can, but sometimes I do falter. Watching her react, I always feel a wash of emotion, guilt mixed with aggravation.

And then, just as quickly, the reminders come flooding in. This will pass. These days are numbered. It won’t be long til she doesn’t want my attention at all, and I’ll want to go back and relive every single park afternoon when Grace’s voice, calling my name, echoed in the early spring air.

As I write this I hear two things in my head: Grace and Whit’s giggles, from next door, and these lines from Ben Folds:

Life flies by in seconds
You’re not a baby Gracie, you’re my friend
You’ll be a lady soon but until then….

One day you’re gonna want to go
I hope we taught you everything you need to know
Gracie girl

And there will always be a part of me
Nobody else is ever gonna see but you and me
My little girl
My Gracie girl

Seuss and Doty

April 4, 2011

Sometimes I can be dense. Sometimes the universe needs to scream at me to get me to hear something.

I wrote a while ago about the Annie Dillard line that I believe says it all: What you see is what you get.

And I practice that, at least most of the time. Last night, walking with Grace and Whit in the very-early-spring evening, Grace stopped short in front of a dense bush that was still mostly sticks and twigs, no leaves. She looked, hushed, into it. I stood next to her and followed her gaze. She whispered, “Look!” and all three of us witnessed a flock of small, dun-colored sparrows deep inside the bush. I have no idea how she noticed them, but I’m glad she did.

I guess I had flagged in my paying attention, though, because I was forcefully reminded of the need to do so this week.

This weekend I read Mark Doty’s beautiful short meditation on creativity, art, and life, Still Life With Oysters and Lemon. The book itself is an exercise in looking closely, an exaltation of the wonders that can result. It evinces, simply, “A faith that if we look and look we will be surprised and we will be rewarded.”

And then last night I read Whit the book that Grace took out of the library for him (one of her new and more endearing habits). It is a Dr Seuss book that’s new to both of us, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut. And Seuss’s voice joins with Doty’s, in a different kind of poetry, “If you keep your eyes open, oh the stuff you will learn! The most wonderful stuff! …you’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”

Okay, universe. I’m paying attention. Eyes wide open here. What I see is what I get.

this most amazing day

April 1, 2011

We are on the cusp of spring. Yet it is going to snow tomorrow. Work is good. But it is so busy. I’m not writing enough. But I’m finally reading more. I have some new, sudden question marks hanging around the edges of my awareness. The weight of my domestic tasks – summer camp health forms, new battery for the car, deposit checks, pack lunches, laundry, write birthday cards – seems to grow and grow. The childrens’ new Crocs for summer have arrived and they are alarming, heartbreakingly large. My desk holds a vase of cheerful yellow daffodils, an always-blinking blackberry, and the shell that Whit painted for me for Valentine’s Day.

I went for a run this evening, which was hard, because I am tired, and because my Achilles tendon hurts. The iron sky spat cold rain/sleet on my face. I ran down familiar streets, past my parents’ house, along the river I love so well. And I came home to the smell of Grace and Whit’s dinner, to their animated noise, deep love and endless demands wound together in their pressing, urgent way.

I came upstairs and sat at my desk, looking out the window at the tree I love so much. All of a sudden its branches are swollen with buds. The buds are full, reddish, the branches slightly drooped from their new weight of fecundity. Did this happen overnight?

Moved by a power I cannot name I knelt by the window, my elbows on the windowsill, my hands clasped. This has happened to me before and I felt the same sensation, of something greater than me filling the room. It was connected, somehow, to the reminder of the turning seasons outside my window, and it gave me both an overwhelming feeling of comfort and an intense need to express my gratitude. My head rested against the cold pane of the glass. I thank you god for this most amazing day ran through my head, over and over again.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for all of the immense blessings that my life holds. Thank you for my legs which can still run, for the health and energy of my children, for the steadiness of my husband, for the well-being of my parents and sister, for our financial stability, for this house, which is small and humble but also safe and warm. For my friends and for poetry and for the food in the fridge and for every single thing I have. My GOD, I have been so ungrateful, so often. Thank you.

My breath fogged up the glass and I knelt, still, murmuring more thanks. I’ve felt so cold lately, and I began to shiver, so I stood up. And I picked up my blackberry and walked downstairs into the warmth of the kitchen, the chaos of the children, the noise of my life.

I thank you god for this most amazing day (ee cummings)

Two wheels

March 29, 2011

On Saturday Whit asked to try biking without his training wheels. He’s a cautious fellow, uninclined to try something new until he’s fairly sure he can do it. In the past he has been adamantly opposed to trying to bike on two wheels. So we though we ought to jump on his new interest. And we did. Matt unscrewed the training wheels and off we went, two blocks up the street, to our park.

We decided to use the basketball courts because of how flat they are. Matt stood behind Whit, helping him balance, and breaking into a slow jog, pushing Whit on the bike. And like millions of parents before him, he let go. And Whit biked away.

He flew.

He biked on his own the very first time he tried. When he slowed to a halt, disembarking inelegantly by letting the bike clatter to the ground, his face was lit by a huge, radiant smile. He wanted to try it over and over again. And so we did. I stood back, my shadow vivid on the cement basketball court from the sun overhead, and I watched. My eyes filled with tears. This, so soon after Grace had pierced my heart with the heartbreakingly familiar I-want-to-be-littler comment.

Finally, we walked home. Whit wanted to bike down our street to home. I ran ahead and waited for him in front of our house. As Matt got him started at the top of the street, I noticed a neighbor walk out onto her front porch on her way to her car. She paused, watching Matt and Whit. Her children are probably 5 years older than mine. Watching her watching us, I thought: this is it. This is one of those moments. I had that powerful sense of observing myself even as I lived, that awareness, uncomfortable in its intensity, that I was passing over a threshold. And then I turned to watch my youngest child pedal towards me down the street on two wheels. And to hug him, fiercely, blinking back tears, after he made it all the way to me.

With special thanks to Kathleen Nolan, who reminded me of this poem: