pull up a chair

gulping sky

it is best practiced on your back. a blanket comes in handy. you can do it in a chair, or standing like a soldier. only then your neck gets sore.

it is eyes locked on heaven. it is watching celestial shadow games, the sun and clouds the players.

it is what happens, unless you live in a house of skylight after skylight, when cold and snow is ended and you finally step outside. into God’s cathedral.

louis kahn, the architect i love because i love his thoughts though not his buildings, talks about the treasury of the shadows. he writes: “light, the giver of presence, casts its shadow which belongs to light. what is made belongs to light and to desire…”

he writes later: “the structure is a design in light. the vault, the dome, the arch, the column, are structures related to the character of light. natural light gives mood to space by nuances of light in the time of the day and the seasons of the year as it enters and modifies the space.”

and so it is with clouds. clouds, i think, are heaven’s vault and dome and arch and column.

i watched the sunbeams play with clouds the other afternoon. i watched the light play peek-a-boo. first, absence of shadow, all light the same, as sun was captive to the clouds. then, as cloud skittered north and east, the rim shone piercing white, a ruffled edge illuminated from blinding light behind the vapored curtain. then, pop, sunbeam re-emerged and shadows danced again.

on and on it went. i was lost in clouds for the better part of an hour. my boys romped. one with camera, the one who caught the clouds above for me. the other one with sand and hands. each one of us lost in time. each one of us transfixed by light and shadow, sand and lake.

it’s what happens when you surrender to the calling of the blanket. the blanket that made you turn the car, and park, and haul it to the sands.

i am, as always, and as so many, many before me, very much a ready student in the great school of God’s world as it surrounds me. i am, me and my home-bound suburban life, hellbent on breaking out, breaking open the fragile and the monumental offered up by nature. be it clouds and light and shadow, or tender shoots refusing to be barred by crust of earth, i am seeping up the lessons, taking in the truths. there is metaphor all over. it’s deep and it’s profound.

and sometimes, when the clouds and sunbeams do their dance, it’s simply pure delight. it made me draw my breath, gulp the sky. it made me call the boys. “come watch this,” i shouted. “here, lie down.”

so the three of us, three logs in a row, we lay there on the blanket, we played a guessing game. when was sunbeam breaking through? when was shadow coming back?

the little one played his own game. he was playing circus in the sky. he saw a fire-breathing dragon. and then an elephant with trunk that poked the dragon in the bottom.

i particularly loved watching the parade of clouds through the filigree of branches bearing buds. it made the sky seem even more immense, made the clouds more beyond my touch. it made me feel so little.

i think, sometimes, that feeling small, in the face of God’s creation, is an extraordinary blessing.

i only wish i took the time to put my spine to earth, my eyes to sunbeam dance, every single day.

anyone else catch the clouds the other afternoon? anyone make a daily practice of gulping sky as celestial exercise?

photo credit: sweet will, once again. lesson learned: don’t leave home without your lens.

5 Comments

March 27, 2007

emergency blanket

it dwells, as too many things do, in the back of my old blue station wagon, the one so old it pre-dates the cupholder as standard feature.

it once was a wedding present from a friend i dearly love. for years and years it covered our bed. then the bed of the boys who came two and 10 years after the wedding. then it started getting so holey i thought it might wend its way around the little one’s neck some night, so off the bed it came.

in the back of the car it landed.

which, it turns out, is a most essential thing.

the blanket, now, has a much more important job than keeping arms and legs and little pink toes covered through the night.

the blanket, now, is in charge of instant, spontaneous, unanticipated (have we sufficiently pounded home that point?) taking time out. the blanket, indeed, is for emergencies.

emergencies of most essential non-essential nature.

see, the sad thing about me–or one of them, at least–is that i am not a natural-born heehaw girl. no, no. that would be some other self, a one i’ve never truly caught up with.

i remember long, long ago being home for spring break and being holed in my room for like 10 hours straight, memorizing every blessed function in the human body for a doozie of a physiology exam. i remember my papa, a man known to keep his fingers to the keyboard for sessions that routinely went late into the night, i remember him coming to my room, practically nabbing me by the scruff of the neck, offering forth one of his famous gene-isms: “the wise man says, a nose to the grindstone only leads to one thing, a sharp nose.”

and so he ushered me out the door, down the stairs and off to some silly movie.

i still need prompts. i still need post-its stuck around my life, reminding me that not every hour need be for getting something done.

i still need, basically, someone to grab me by the neck, point me down the stairs, turn me in the direction of silly movies.

my papa’s not around, so i keep my blanket near at hand. you, like many who’ve glanced in the back of my wagon, might wonder why i travel, 12 months a year, with my holey blanket.

well, the reason, one of them anyway, made itself duly apparent yesterday when me and the ol’ wagon and those two boys turned in at the lighthouse parking lot instead of driving by. i lurched the car into park (if you’ve ever driven with me you know i don’t choose these verbs randomly, they are plucked with true precision), slung backpack over shoulders and, while wondering eyes absorbed the shock, i hauled blanket from the back.

“c’mon boys,” i shouted over my shoulder, headed down the hill. “we’re going to the beach.”

mind you, our beach was less than a mile from our house, but we fell into communion with all those around the globe, many of whom started out from here, the town that’s been deserted, stretched out on sands, slathered under sunscreen.

oops. i forgot the sunscreen.

ah well, the blanket, you recall, is prompt for unintended fun. it has no duties in the practical department. that would be another post-it i’ll need to leave around: don’t forget the sunscreen.

before i leave you stranded on the beach, though, my whole point in bringing up my blanket is the most essential grace of stopping time sometimes. hitting the proverbial pause. even if, especially if, you’re not a million miles from home, and you’ve not packed a suitcase.

the zen buddhists teach us well, and muslims too: take time out of your day. carve deep places for quiet contemplation. and don’t forget the prayer of the unplanned picnic.

to gather on a beach, to bury legs in sand. to watch the waters ebb and flow. it can be a holy moment. the sacred sound of laughing with your children, or anyone you love.

there is unending grace, it seems, in allowing an ordinary moment to turn itself inside out, to expose the whimsy of an hour when all that really matters is that you’re not doing the thing you thought you would have been.

so here’s the prompt: be ready in an instant. don’t leave home without your holey blanket.

tomorrow: what happens when you stretch out on holey blankets.
photo credit: my sweet will, armed with camera, whereas i was not, indulged me–and all of you–with the image up above. sumptuous, is it not?
and now, your turn: how do you remind yourselves to take time out for unadulterated joy? are you, unlike me, good at skipping class?

4 Comments

March 26, 2007

last one out, turn out the lights

so here we are, supremely home alone. whole town, it seems, is up and gone. destinations: distant.

not us. we’re here, hauling in the papers, the mail. feeding home-bound cats. keeping an eye out for wayward packages.

we are the stay-at-home brigade. and we’re rather practiced at it. except for once in four years, when we made an emergency crash landing at my then newly grieving, widowed brother’s, we’re the ones who hold down the block, every spring break.

mind you, it has its advantages. other night, i was the only one in the checkout line at jewel. matter of fact, i was the only one in the store. the checkers were holding a little dance contest when i rolled in, needing strawberries and milk and pretzels stuffed with apples (the finest bedtime snack, made, it turns out, by my pilates buddy kim; we twist like pretzels together, she makes them for a living).

if we wanted to take our pretzels to the street, plunk down in our jammies, with our glasses of milk and our puffy twists, we could do that. no one would honk a horn. we could sit there dunking pretzels for a quarter hour, in the part of the street where the cars zoom back and forth on an ordinary evening. but not this week, oh no. no one, not a single headlight, would come shining down the lane.

i’m telling you, we’re all alone here.

it was quite something, the wind-up to this solitary adventure. first the calls started coming in: could you bring in our mail? could you feed the cats? scoop the cat box? funny, no one even asked if we were leaving; they just assumed, as always, we’d be here.

then the afternoon that school got out for the last time in a week, all these funny trucks started pulling to the curb. trucks with “stay,” blazoned to the side. seems all the mutts on the block were getting escorted to spas for spring break.

wonder if i coulda jumped in? done a little panting? drooling, perhaps? made like i was just another mutt.

ah well. the stay mobiles departed, then black cars arrived. no one, it seems, drives to airports anymore. they let the black cars do the honking. they made no noise on my block, the black cars did not. they quietly opened up their doors, flipped their trunks, then carried off the folks who’d packed up all their sunblock.

i waved, from here on the curb. then i got to making my calculated chart. figured out the rounds, which cat when, which mail where.

but now we’re settled. now we’re having fun. we’ve got the whole movie store to ourself. we can have any flavor we want at the baskin-robbins. and just yesterday after a long family bike ride (yes, the one who once fell off, remounted and rode again, much to his mother’s pounding glee), i dashed inside, poured big mugs of pink lemonade, piled high a basket full of pretzels, carried it outside to where the boys were waiting.

tell me, i began, what bed & breakfast would serve pink lemonade and pretzels in the middle of a sunday afternoon?

with that, the easy rider curled up and took a three-hour nap. there was no noise to wake him. only the sound of his mama being home alone.

and if you’ll excuse me now, the bed & breakfast is serving the boys’ most favorite french toast, and someone around here has to get the griddle going…..

anyone else around this week? or are you tapping in tahiti?

also, i noticed over the weekend, a truly wonderful lacing of comments being added to days past. please, never feel like a subject is closed once the next meander rolls along. the conversation, like a good broth, gets richer for the simmer, the adding of ingredients. take a glance back. add more thoughts. this chair endeavor is best when the thoughts keep building. i am only here to get the broth on the burner. you are the ones who make it worth savoring……and for that, of course, i thank you deeply…

4 Comments

March 23, 2007

day job: washing windows

it’s an occupational hazard, or at least this week it was. i’ve been spritzing, rubbing, wiping streaks from windows all around.

my glass, egad, so streakless, poor pigeon crashed beak-first into what it thought was sky. (fear not, i went in search of him, poor feather-fallen thing, but he was nowhere to be found, which means i can assume that his neck remained intact; by the way, i promptly scotch-taped cutout bird to prevent another crash. did you know that window crashes kill a billion birds a year? someone counted.)

but back to window wiping.

all this wild-eyed doing away with smudge and splot, the goo that’s left from winter, it has nothing to do with me going nuts with newfound vernal light. and it’s not, i promise, from inhaling ammonia fumes.

no no, you see, in the latest wrinkle of my investigative life, i am testing cleaners. green cleaners to be precise. trying to determine if saving the sweet earth might mean giving up some sheen.

it is, i suppose, spring cleaning under duress.

were it not for story deadline, would i be spritzing up a storm?

truly, probably not. but fact of the matter is i do appreciate the leap on clean that it inspired.

oh no, here we go again. me and my fixation on making messes clean. no no, i do protest, it’s not the messes i detest (though they do get under my skin, make me kind of antsy, remind me i’m a slob at heart, just one pile away from giving in to inner pigpen), it’s the dirt.

ah yes, it’s doing away with dirt that gets my juices bubbling.

i was i love lucy, all except the rag tied ‘round my head, madly sudsing up this house.

the more you ditch the dirt, i find, the more determined you become. what starts out as surface cleaning quickly takes a dive. you find yourself quite suddenly excavating grime. there you are in cracks and shadows mining shmutz of origin unknown.

i was reading of the jewish ritual of cleaning house for passover, the bread-free springtime festival that hovers around easter, and i kid you not the sisterhood recommended toothpicks and q-tips for getting into crevices. that is armament the likes of which this catholic girl has rarely seen.

and then, as if the toothpicks aren’t enough, the night before the eve of passover, the whole family ventures through the house, in search of furtive crumb that might be clinging to a crack. this time armed with feather, spoon and candle, papa leads the way. any crumb that’s confiscated will be burned in ritual offering the next morning. all this spelled out in the holy book.

and that wouldn’t be a guide to springtime cleaning.

though it could be.

what is it, i wonder, that has us as a species so finely wired that when the clock ticks march, we are stirred to shake the rugs? to grab the feather duster? all right, at least to dial up the kleen brigade, and make a date for superkleen with extra wax?

maybe it’s got something to do with all the pure new light, the angle that it slants, how it catches on the dust fields in ways it never did in winter.

or maybe there’s some chemical that surges when the daylight savings time clicks in, and suddenly all over, we feel the need to shake the feathers from our nest.

speaking of feathers, it seems i was not the only one under this shingled roof who got into the nesting groove this week.

seems that mama sparrow has been sizing up my house, looking high and low for a place to call her own. spied herself a little cove, she did, right above the woodwork that surrounds the new front door. the very one, of course, where i’ve been madly cleaning glass.

my mama saw her darting in and out. i saw her picking sticks, like she was bargain hunting in the basement of filene’s, i tell you, sifting through the racks of sticks, deciding just which one. plucking this stick, wiggling it around, dropping stick back to the ground. maybe she didn’t like the way it looked against her feathers.

my mama, ever full of common sense and what lurks around the corner, pointed out that if mrs. sparrow and her brood spend their hatching days right above my door, well, i’ll be wiping lots of springtime goo from panes of glass.

this springtime cleaning thing might take me through to summer.

anyone else out there doing the feather-duster dance?

1 Comment

March 22, 2007

questions without answers

hands loosely on the wheel, old blue wagon gliding to a stop, i was blankly looking through the rain-splotched windshield when the little voice behind me shot me this:

“mama, when we die, what will happen? will the world start again?”

he barely gave me time to gulp, time to gather thought, compose an honest answer, when the rat-a-tat continued.

“well, will i die?

“will you?

“when will dada die?”

i could not keep my eyes on the road. i turned and locked on his. he was looking up, looking my way, searching me for answers.

i gave him my best shot. told him straight. yes. yes. and, oh, honey, we don’t know.

all three appended with this attempt at reassuring: not for a long, long time.

then i launched into heaven 101.

praying as i went.

how, i ask you, in the middle of a ho-hum drive to home from hockey, did the most essential questions come popping from his mouth? why not something simple, like, mama, can i have macaroni for my lunch?

macaroni, i could handle. knock that sucker, kaboom, clear out of the park.

camus and sartre, hiding under hockey jersey, i could only fumble, hands barely groped at bat.

it is, i swear, the deepest privilege of being a mama or a papa, or a someone who breathes in sync with little people. being the first pair of ears to hear these questions as they leap from child’s soul. to witness from front row the human mind expand, go deeper, gather goods to last a lifetime.

it is self, unedited. it is child’s quintessential work, exploring the unknown. making sense of everything from how the dandelion blows to what happens when i am no longer. asking giant questions of the universe, and aiming them, first shot out, at the original sounding board of life.

in the case of my little boy, that would most often be me, the one who birthed him, nursed him, rocked him through his early, howling bedtime hours. as i’m still the one he’s with the most hours of the day, i’m pretty much the moving target on which he throws his thinking-child darts.

out of the blue, left field, in the middle of a meatloaf, the questions, they come hurling. there is no agenda in a child’s mind, no timetable for when a question comes. in the seamlessness of mind and soul, the question’s posed in the midst of its creation.

you never have a clue, never get a notice, that your very breath might soon be sucked away by the tender beauty, the monumental power, of the unexpected puzzle of the hour.

it is, for all of us who spend the day in striking distance of a child’s heart, the often-unrepeated script. the lost dialogue you can never seize again. it unspools so suddenly, so without ceremony, you can sometimes only hope that you’ll remember. but then the business of the day shoves the thought aside, and no matter how you try, you can’t retrieve the words, or the magic of the moment.

sure, we sometimes hear the silly lines. used to find them tucked in the pages of the reader’s digest. nowadays, they come in fwd emails, alleged collections of the darnedest things that children say. i often laugh then hit delete.

but what about when the script comes tumbling forth in real time, and you’re the only one who hears. you’re the one who gets to fill in blanks, connect the dots, pick a or b or c, all of the above. take a stab at the deepest truths known to humankind.

because the job i do each day, the job besides the ones i do at home, is to scribble madly, gather quotes, listen closely to each and every word and how it’s said, i have a rather unstoppable inclination to reach for pen whenever quotes unfurl.

especially ones that nearly make me wreck the car (although you might argue that scribbling while trying to hold the wheel only enhances the chance of body shop in my offing).

of all the wise souls i have quoted, and i have quoted many, i don’t think that any lines have done as much for stealing breath as the ones i’ve caught while stirring, steering, scrubbing curly hair.

the jottings that i jot, long ago from thinker 1 and now from thinker 2, are in fact a first-hand record of the unfolding of a child’s soul, even when the questions are hard to hear, the answers hard to come by.

lest you misguidedly surmise that all are thick and dense and heavy, here’s the one he lobbed my way, just yesterday, just an hour after heaven 101, spooning—yes, it’s true—macaroni in his hungry mouth.

“mama,” he began his latest theory, “i think when food goes down there’s like a theme park and it goes down a roller coaster.” uh huh, i utter, in the middle of my swallow.

“is there like an exit for the bad food,” he asks, pointing to his neck. “does it go this way or this way?” he wonders further, making motions east and west from just above that hockey jersey.

i am starting to think, now jotting my own thought, that perhaps the recent lack of sleep (see “the trouble with sleep,” 03.21.07) is doing wonders for my budding thinker.

what are the questions without answers at your house?

8 Comments

March 21, 2007

the trouble with sleep

if we were in the tv listings, it’s not clear whether we’d be pegged as tragedy or comedy. let’s call it the tragi-comedy that wouldn’t quit.

it started, as many prime time episodes often do, innocently enough. the antagonist (that would be me) duly bathed, and read and prayed with sir protagonist (that’s him up above, but that’s getting way ahead of the script).

there was the usual kiss on the head, the “sleep tight,” as sheets were pulled and tucked one last time, the “see you in the morning,” tossed over the shoulder as mama antagonist sauntered out of the room, hit the hall light and thought she’d have, oh, maybe an hour to herself.

she had barely rounded the kitchen corner, barely wrapped her hands on the popcorn she’d be popping, when the first plaintive wail came wending down the stairs.

something about a back rub.

antagonist, being mean, shot back a simple: “go to sleep.”

back rub plea, repeated.

teetering between tenderness and needing to cork the noise, mean mama softens–nay, relents–and ascends for what at best might be termed a 15-second swish of palm to little back.

just enough time for little mastermind to toss his next attempt at barring sleep. this time something about being lonely. needing cheetah. mama rolls her eyes. in the dark, he must have missed that.

she retreats to office. he, apparently, set off to nighttime jungle, where, big hunter he, he procured the big cat of his desires. which is what you see above. the trophy moment, caught on film. marlin perkins couldn’t be more proud.

if memory serves me right (these nighttime dramas make me foggy-headed, they twist and go so long), there were these added bumps in the weary road to sleep: the cheetah, it seems, was not enough. soon all the friends were needed. which, then, precipitated the problem of needing sleeping room for entire mattress menagerie.

at quarter ’til eleven–egad, if i believed in caps, those last three words would have been big and raised–his animals apparently lined neatly in a row, stretched from one end of the bed to the other, young sir protagonist tiptoed in the dark to where i sat typing. he sidled up quite softly, whispered in my ear, so sweet he took my breath away: “i have a little problem. i have a pillow for all my friends, but now there’s no pillow for me.” dropping his whisper even lower, he offered his solution: “i’ll grab a little couch pillow.”

as he wandered out for pillow fetching, he turned to ask me this: “what does cardinal start with? what does st. louis cardinals start with?” the boy is learning letters, and apparently at that late hour, all barricades are lifted, and thoughts just flow like cars cruising late-night streets.

yes, yes, at last, the house was quiet. (but not before two music boxes crashed onto the ground at an hour i won’t disclose, promptly–i assure you–propelling me off my chair and up the stairs to see what the bleep was the matter. what in heaven’s name? was he cranking lullabyes for pillow-hogging critters? alas, i did not ask. i had firm tucking to attend to.)

yes, yes, with that crescendo, our little drama ends. the late night rambler, cat in arms, finally quelled his rambling soles deep beneath the covers.

i never did get mad. it was all too charming, a charm perhaps only a mother could love.

i can hear you shrieking. i might hear you dialing dcfs, the folks in illinois who protect little ones, god bless them deeply.

but before the sirens blare, before they cart me off, might we pause and ponder just why the dark abyss of sleep feels so deep and bottomless to a child who clings to light in any form? why some nights is the settling to bed so agitated an exercise that all are worn and wounded before it winds to its hushed-at-last conclusion?

in my house, both boys come by disdain for sleep, well, rather honestly. naturally, in fact. i would be one who, if she could, would round the clock with nary but a nap. i love early morning. i love late night. that leaves little room for dozing in the middle.

the trouble with sleep, as i see it, is you get so little done. i find every hour has its charms. deep down, i think, i hate to miss a minute of this blessed thing called life.

and so, my little children just might think the same. no wonder i was charmed by the litany of pleas that kept the cheetah hunter prowling deep into the dark of night.

and thank heaven for kindergarten in the afternoon. while he sleeps off his prowl, i get the morning to myself.

pssst….it’s not always so drawn out. this particular protracted bedtime was truly made for tv. sometimes these episodes simply shout to be recorded. and you can always change the channel. though, of course, i hope you’ll stay tuned. in fact, i know there are other bedtime dramas out there. any takers in the fine art of telling bedtime tales?

4 Comments

March 20, 2007

equal parts: light and dark

seven minutes past seven tonight, chicago time, the sun will slide into absolute right angle, beam its rays straight on the equator. not angled north or south. dead on. bingo. that’ll mean, at long last, no matter how you cut it, it’s spring.

vernal equinox, defined: the planet halved by sun. equal light for all. until tomorrow, when the slant slides north. when south moves into shadow.

spring, the season of exodus and resurrection, of life unfurling, but, too, life falling from the nest. or, sadder yet, getting pushed. it’s death and life all over. to be reborn, the preachers shout, you first must die.

the whole top half of the world is shaking off its winter death. but death, i tell you, comes too in spring. hand in hand with life. this is the season of light and shadow.

it’s seesaw season, yin and yang. it’s stripping off old skin, it’s starting over. it’s tender and it’s green, beginning green. green before the chlorophyll goes gaga.

it’s chirping and it’s warbling. it’s worms being dropped in squawking mouths—life to bird but death to worm. it’s watching mama tend her brood. it’s watching, if you’re lucky, baby owl flap first wings, a sight you won’t forget.

it’s the season of awe. the season of heartbreak. everything feels tender all over. even me, some days.

it’s asparagus thin as pencils. it’s fungi grown in forest shadows. it’s raindrops swelled and pouncing. it’s puddles ripe for rubber boots.

it’s strawberries, so many, you break out in a rash. and then you bite another, dripping red right down your chin. rash, be damned; you drip.

it’s waiting an entire year for star magnolia to explode in cloud of white, perfumed. and then spring wind rips through, stripping branches naked. magnolia tatters piled on the ground. you ache as you pick up pieces. begin the year-long wait again.

it’s holding your breath as heirloom hyacinth bats its smoky lavender lashes, and then you wake up next morning to find the possums had a hoe-down and broke the stalk in two.

it’s going mad with the endless fields of iridescent blue, the siberian squill, that for a few short weeks makes us drylanders think we’re living in the midst of cobalt pools. each nodding head, a mere three inches off the ground. they grow in dappled light and shadow, but only where the earth is long undisturbed. blue ribbon, then, for keeping bulldozer at bay.

the japanese, enlightened, teach that the beauty of the cherry blossom is its evanescence. the very fact that any minute a breeze might blow and blossoms will be scattered. they understand the essence of the season. they might, more than most, be keen to what it’s teaching: behold the blossom. it won’t last for long. inhale the perfume. rub up against the velvet petal.

the italians have a word, tristesse. “beautiful sorrow,” i was told it meant. knowing what you love won’t last. and so you love more deeply. is this the truth of spring?

if you listen to the change in season, if you hold it to your heart, it unlocks all sorts of lessons ripe for plucking.
here are my promises for spring, the season full of promise…..

i will wake up, not with blaring alarm, but gently, with the beads of first light tapping me on my lids.

i will stretch before the sun, bow down, be humbled.

i will make my first stop each morning beyond the kitchen door, in the garden. i will listen to the morning song of whoever’s beat me to the punch.

i will crouch down, inspect the growing things. take note of miracles that unfold in dark of night and light of day when i’m not looking, hunched inside, tapping at a keyboard.

i will make the bent willow basket on my old lady bike the vehicle of choice for ferrying loaves of bread and jugs of milk. don’t forget the berries, plump and sweet.

i will rescue broken flowers and ferry them to my window sill infirmary, where i’ll apply remedies and potions, or simply watch them fade away in peace.

i will swipe the fuzz from my dryer filter, pile it, and lay it at the foot of my big spruce. i might post a little sign: “fuzz, free for all nest-building birds. help yourself.”

i will cry if blustery afternoons wreak havoc on my blossoms. i’ll do the same in case of ice or pelting sleet. i will nurse the hurt, deep breathing, until the stinging goes away. like my knees when i was little and went skidding from my bike.

i will, some night, dine on nothing but the tender shoots of spring. i’ll wash it down with vernal wine, dry and white and new.

i will, as many mornings as i can, stuff myself with strawberries.

i will slosh through puddles.

i will take my little one by the hand and we will jump. see how high we can make the puddles splash.

i will, if i find a baby bird fallen from the nest, whisper a proper benediction as i perform a proper burial. lay a sprig of springtime flowers. teach my boys to do the same.

i will try to read the night sky.

i will watch the sun come up, thermos of coffee planted in the sand beside me.

i will, if i’m in the mood, wrap eggs in onion skins, and marvel at the marbled shades of creme de caramel.

i will master the shortest shortcake ever. then bury it under avalanche of berries.

i will plot my plantings yet again. tuck them into warming soils. hope. pray. sprinkle incantations. and water, too.

i will marvel at these days of yin and yang. and i will drink deeply from the season’s spring-fed well.

that’ll get me started. how ’bout you?

2 Comments

March 19, 2007

blue vs. blues

it hit me, as it often does, in the blink between up and sleep. not even fluttering eyes, and already the lunge ball gets me. right in the belly.

the weight of the week just past, the specter of the week ahead. it doesn’t usually collide on the weekend, but this weekend it did. saturday morning felt too much like a monday. a blue monday, most of all.

so i did what makes no sense. i didn’t dive into the taxes, which was but one of the dark clouds looming. i didn’t dive into cleaning, which, check this out, i need to do for work (a journalistic foray into the land of cleaning without toxins).

i did not do a one of the things on my nerve-wracking, energy-sapping, tummy-rumbling list.

nope, i grabbed for old spoons and plates. i found solace in old willow china, chipped around the rim. i found delight in antique silver, worn to dull through decades of thumbs and fingers, lips and tongues, slurping, spooning, licking, lifting.

i ditched the deep red cloths of winter, pulled out the checks of blue and white. laid blue on blue on blue. watched the morning light stream in. it made blue shadows on the wall.

i tossed, at last, a mound of old dead apples, apples that long ago required cpr. i dusted out the wooden bowl in which they spent the winter. tucked it on a shelf.

filled an english pitcher with fists full of daffodils.

all the while, i worked alone.

the gods of sleep, they blessed me. even though they forgot to protect me from the onslaught of waking up with a lead weight in my belly, they kept everyone else in the house in slumber till i woke them at half past ten.

you can imagine, i’m sure, what three unbroken hours of solitude and silence do to soothe a harried mama’s heart.

i found, in setting a springtime table, that i was chasing away the blues. or keeping them at bay, anyways.

i have, since long ago, a little girl keeping watch as my grandma put out silver napkin rings and damask napkins, egg cups and a silver rack for toast that i might have thought would hold up bills and letters, or baby bicycles perhaps, found joy in setting tables.

i’m neither martha stewart, nor minimalist when it comes to tables. you won’t find me glue-gunning little bunnies, nor waxing autumn leaves.

but you will find me sighing as i put out plates given to me long ago, by a man whose house we bought who’s probably no longer still alive. and you will find me thinking all about the friend who gave me old spoons for turning 50.

as i set the table, i gather souls, some of whom i’ve not seen for decades. but who are never farther than the drawers and the cupboards where i keep old things, beautiful things. things sometimes chipped, often worn, but always with a story.

i set stories on my table. weave a half century, now, of history into what you might see as simply plate and spoon and cup. but not me.

i run my fingers over the plate of a gentle man who wept as he left behind the house he’d carved with light. i lift the cobalt glass i first gasped at when i spied it on a shelf at a store that is no longer, a young bride picking the things she’d set on her table till death did they part.

i have no clue if my grandma soothed her jagged nerves unfurling damask cloth, making paper place cards affixed with bunny cut-outs, or jolly santas with rosy cheeks. she would never have let on, if in fact she did.

but i know that by the time my boys tumbled down the stairs and came upon a springtime table, i was less a frazzled mama and more a woman who’d found a balm in bringing stories to my table.

anyone else find solace in the laying of a table? in the textures and the patterns, the colors and the curves? in, most of all, the stories and the souls who are carried to the table?

4 Comments

March 16, 2007

crack the windows

i stood there trying to brush my teeth, but something caught my eye. something bright and beautiful and liquid. it was the morning slant of light, pouring through the shutter slats. the morning slant of late winter’s light. the light on the cusp of the equinox, when each day the sun, more pure it seems than the day before, inches higher in the sky.

the light in late winter is arresting. it stopped me, all right. pulled me to the shutters, where i couldn’t help but pull them back. i felt hungry, suddenly, for the light. the light so white, so rich, so dense, it filled my every pallid pore. i wanted to drink it, to bathe in it, to let it spill all over my wintry leather shell.

so i did the only sensible thing: i cracked open the window. i let in light. i let in air. the air, chilly once again, did not quite match the light. these are tricky days, when air and light do shifting tango. just the other day, in sync. now, bright but chilly.

but still, once the window opened, i bristled at the brisk cold air. a fine bristle. a healthy bristle.

and smelling real fresh air, as opposed to the stale stuff of winter, i left the window open. let the house exhale. a big long puff of winter air—the air of smoldering logs and simmering soups, the air of baking bread and barking coughs—i let it out.

i let in air of spring arriving.

i think of big-bosomed nurses, long ago. of nurses in white starched caps. with ample arms. shoving open windows in the depths of winter. long ago, clean air, clearing air, had much to do with sanitation. shooshing out the germs. as if the germs would follow rules. follow nurses’ orders.

i tried, lamely, to do the same. i have no bosom, none to speak of. my arms aren’t ample. hardly. but still i ordered out the germs.

and in the next breath, i wiggled finger, coaxing fresh air to come in. to swirl around. to fill the rooms. to fill my lungs.

how often do we think of air? usually only when it chokes us. sometimes, when it takes our breath away. or when it cleanses.

which is what it did to me, my house.

my house is breathing in and out. my house, i hope, is getting pure. what a power, so invisible. the air, i think, is just like God. take a breath. a deep one. fill your lungs.

2 Comments

March 15, 2007

nook by nook

cranny by cranny, we are tucking bits of our soul into this old house. first time i pointed my shoes down the winding walk that leads to the blue-slate stoop that leads to the glass-paned door and into this humble house, i felt a chill run down my spine.

i felt like i’d been here before. i felt like this was home, this place i’d never been. i felt like i knew not only the essence behind the walls, but all its secrets, too.

most of my life i’ve found the places i’ve lived quite by accident, often with a shiver down my neck. i just know, as i knew here, that these are rooms to spread my soul.

it is often the oddest things. things that don’t add up, not by ordinary math. a laundry chute. a magic place, a place for elves or little children, tucked beneath the boughs of spruce out back. the way the light slants through the front bay window. the narrow planks of oak. the wider planks of pine.

never mind square feet. or mstr suites. couldn’t care less for granite counters. or 3-car garage. like i said, i’m no mathematician. the numbers never add. it’s just a sense, a knowing. it’s a place that calls my name.

besides the oddest things, the don’t-add-up things, there are two essentials i cannot do without: light and flow. i need rooms with light that pours and light that dances, casts its shadows, hour by hour. louis kahn, the great architect and thinker, calls light “the divine animator.” this house has light.

what it didn’t have was lots of nooks and crannies. it was a house built in 1941, a time when efficiency and getting to the point was high on the agenda. it was built by a doctor, a doctor who delivered babies. and i’m guessing he meant business. not one to dilly-dally around the delivery room, he wanted his deliveries, his day, his path from bed to bath unencumbered.

he, unlike me, might have prided himself on a direct route from a to b. not me. i like meandering. i like the route least direct. i’m a dreamer, not a driver. i like stops along the way. i like the possibility of pulling over, unfurling blanket under tree, counting clouds.

nooks and crannies in a house are for those who savor pulling over. nooks beckon. they call your name. they are little places that invite you in. come here, they say, curl up. be harbored. tuck your secrets here.

a nook and cranny in a house is like a jacket full of pockets. like a sentence that rolls with clauses. it makes for texture, layer upon layer of possibility.

and so, one nook or cranny at a time, we’ve filled this house with place to pause, with room enough for wisps of dreams.

up in the room where we lay our heads there is now a window seat, looking out into limbs that any week now might be sprouting tiny shoots of green. i’ll get to watch from just inches away. and if a mama bird settles on a branch, i’ll keep a careful eye on the hatchery.

one whole wall in the room where i type is row upon row of bookshelves. four tall sentries, filled with pages, keeping watch over my shoulder as i channel words to screen.

in the kitchen, there’s a narrow nook for hanging coats. and across the way, a built-in bench beneath a window garden. it’s all a bit of heaven, if your idea of heaven is one with nooks at every turn.

each nook, each cranny, has come to our house courtesy of jim, the grilled-cheese builder. not a one is anything fancy. not a one the stuff that steals the cover of some shelter slick or glossy.

each one is rather quiet. but each one makes me sigh. long as i’ve been dreaming, i’ve dreamed of nooks and crannies tucked in little corners. maybe i read too many fairy tales. maybe i stared too long into drawings of magic cottages in the woods where all was old and quaint.

jim was here day before last, tucking two last nooks in two more corners. they are nooks for plates and cups. very old plates and cups. the ones i had in boxes for the last four years, and before that, stacked so high on a shelf, i needed a step ladder to reach them. i don’t know about you, but i’m less inclined to use for dinner when a ladder is required.

since this is, i swear, the house where i’ll grow old, the last house i’ll call my own, i thought it might be rather nice to actually start to use those dishes. a cupboard is an old idea, not a radical idea, a place to hold your cups. a cupboard tucked in corner, even better. a fine old idea; one the doctor, bless him, didn’t think of. he was thinking straight lines, i am thinking not.

alas, on the long list of things this old house needed, i assure you, nooks for plates and cups, especially old ones, was hardly up there. even if it meant years of dinners, christmas, seders, passed without the fine old plates.

as jim & co. banged the nooks into their place, i heard the old room sigh. it’s been waiting 66 years for that little bit of angle-changing. i sighed too. knowing that we were ticking off nearly the last nook on the list.

this old house has been hammered plenty since we moved in. the rafters might well be shaking. it’s time at last to settle in, to settle deep into these floorboards.

a wise friend and architect once told me, “a house bends toward its inhabitants.”

our house has bent, all right. our house, once hard angles everywhere, is now a house of nooks and crannies. it’s a place where i can dream. curl up and wonder. stretch out and ponder.
we are blessed to call this home. more blessed still to have tucked in nooks and crannies.

do you have a nook? one inside your house? one somewhere out in the woods? a nook of the world? a nook beside your bed? where in your house do you feel your dreams best stoked?

2 Comments