There is a corner behind the door in my dining room where all the dust bunnies gather. No matter how many times a week I sweep, still I find them there: inert, fuzzy and gray. It makes wonder over the invisible drifts and currents of air that move through my space at constant. Small eddies and powerful riptides of a wind that must whisper past my messes and children and fast pacing, slippered feet. Whirlpools sparked into action by my passage as I return to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. Rapids and churned up turbulence every time Henry runs the length of the main hallway at break-neck speed. And Greyson, down in the dirty mix of it as he crawls from place to place, air and dust and moments swirling around him as he tries to figure out what the world means—as he begins to explore space and place and the ability to move between them. I wonder if we become bipeds, pushing and pulling our weak, chubby baby legs into a standing position, in order to raise our heads above the drifting currents of so many legs passing us by.
As I adjust to this move, I feel much the same. Trying so hard to pull myself to a stand. Cruising from thing to thing, always holding on, unable to support myself entirely. Losing my balance, learning to trust myself again. What would it look like if I could just be brave enough to exist in the turmoil of this moment in my life? To breathe deeply and acknowledge that moving to a new place is hard and stressful and will inevitably send me scrambling to relocate who I am and what everything means.
I swept today. The corner is clean for now. But what dust must still swirl and agitate in the air! It will settle again unto everything—lurking in corners and lingering on surfaces. I heard once that housework is like beading onto a string with no knot. My life feels like this lately, like a constant running to catch up, to be only as far behind as I was the day before. And while I want to make changes, to become something or someone better, I always feel the need to be caught up before I can begin to change. But as of right now, I’m going to approach it differently. I’m going to chip away day by day at what is before me and still try to find time for myself even if I’m not done with my chores. Or else, I fear, I’ll get lost in the mix. There’s going to be dust tomorrow in all the places I dusted today, and there will be more dishes on the counter in the same place I just cleared off, and there will be poop in diapers I’ve just changed, but I’m going to keep going on and I’m also going to find time to pray and to read and to write. And if there’s dust in the corner, if there are dishes on the counter, I’ll live with it. I’m still going to have to change the diapers though…
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Jane's Take on Memory...
An excerpt of the musings of Fanny Price from Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen:
"If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obediant--at others, so bewildered and so weak--and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond controul!--We are to be sure a miracle every way--but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting, do seem peculiarly past finding out."
"If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obediant--at others, so bewildered and so weak--and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond controul!--We are to be sure a miracle every way--but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting, do seem peculiarly past finding out."
Friday, October 29, 2010
Faith Trust and Pixie Dust
Henry has learned his memory verse for the month in two days: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid for God is with you.” I must take this to heart. For those of you who actually read this, if there are any—if anyone who ever read this blog is patient enough to check back every month or so when I’m able to put up a post—you must know I’m scared of this blog. Well, not the blog in particular, but I’m scared of imperfection. I’m scared of ever doing anything that isn’t exactly wonderful or amazing. And so you see my dilemma. I often hate that I haven’t written and sit down and write but what comes out is full of halting fearful starts that are doomed to imperfection and therefore doomed to be deleted.
Ironically, the only way that I will ever be able to get to the meat is if I do it everyday. Like exercise. Imagine working out for the first time in awhile and feeling really out of shape (because you are) and therefore deciding it’s not for you because you’re not good at it. That is how I am with writing. And it doesn’t help that I was once very good. It doesn’t help that, much like a person who was once very beautiful and is now getting older, I look back at my old writing from grad school, from creative writing I’ve done, and I stand, mouth agape, wondering who that person was. That person that I can no longer see in the mirror; that voice that I can no longer call forth. I remember a beautiful documentary by an aged French documentarian who, at different times throughout the film, would focus the lens on her hands and wonder whose they were-these elderly things. Surely not her own. This is how my life has become. Whose life is this?
On days like today, as I finally face the white freedom of this page—wanting so badly to run away, avoid it the way I have been—I worry about what my life is. What it has become. Or perhaps I wonder at my inability to reach into my days and pluck out something small and sparkly: a daily wisdom; an inspired thought.
Once upon a time…
Once upon a time, I was a brilliant student. My mind unlocked and unveiled philosophies and my fingers typed across the keyboard purely magical essays in record time. I would reread them later and not understand where they had come from—the insights, the words themselves. It was like a super-power. I would enter a trance like state, brought on by the mix of stress, caffeine, nicotine, too little sleep and too little food. I wouldn’t leave the house for weeks; my neighbors brought me food and cigarettes; did my dishes; listened to me read and reread every word. I never wrote drafts. I sat at the computer and the first paragraph of a 25 pg essay would take 5-6 hours. It was the most important part. It was like the way you throw a pot—the clay must be perfectly balanced and symmetrical on the wheel before you begin, or the pot will fall apart as you pull it up.
Once the first paragraphs were down, which might take 1-2 full days, the rest flowed out. Well, came out slowly. Word by word; brick by brick. It eeked it’s way onto the page. The process was that I had to reread what I had written, and then what came next would just follow, seemingly of it’s own accord. The essay felt as though it was writing itself, and my job was to listen very carefully and find the exact words to help it go in the direction it was meant for.
And yet now, I grab a few minutes to sit on a bar stool in my kitchen and attempt to cull something interesting out of my life to deposit here like it’s a savings account. And I find I’m over-drafted. There’s nothing left for this space sometimes.
But even in these moments, bankrupt as I am, I must remember Henry’s verse: be strong and courageous, do not be afraid for god is with you. And it’s the menial, petty days full of sticky little details that lack meaning that often require the most courage and faith…
Ironically, the only way that I will ever be able to get to the meat is if I do it everyday. Like exercise. Imagine working out for the first time in awhile and feeling really out of shape (because you are) and therefore deciding it’s not for you because you’re not good at it. That is how I am with writing. And it doesn’t help that I was once very good. It doesn’t help that, much like a person who was once very beautiful and is now getting older, I look back at my old writing from grad school, from creative writing I’ve done, and I stand, mouth agape, wondering who that person was. That person that I can no longer see in the mirror; that voice that I can no longer call forth. I remember a beautiful documentary by an aged French documentarian who, at different times throughout the film, would focus the lens on her hands and wonder whose they were-these elderly things. Surely not her own. This is how my life has become. Whose life is this?
On days like today, as I finally face the white freedom of this page—wanting so badly to run away, avoid it the way I have been—I worry about what my life is. What it has become. Or perhaps I wonder at my inability to reach into my days and pluck out something small and sparkly: a daily wisdom; an inspired thought.
Once upon a time…
Once upon a time, I was a brilliant student. My mind unlocked and unveiled philosophies and my fingers typed across the keyboard purely magical essays in record time. I would reread them later and not understand where they had come from—the insights, the words themselves. It was like a super-power. I would enter a trance like state, brought on by the mix of stress, caffeine, nicotine, too little sleep and too little food. I wouldn’t leave the house for weeks; my neighbors brought me food and cigarettes; did my dishes; listened to me read and reread every word. I never wrote drafts. I sat at the computer and the first paragraph of a 25 pg essay would take 5-6 hours. It was the most important part. It was like the way you throw a pot—the clay must be perfectly balanced and symmetrical on the wheel before you begin, or the pot will fall apart as you pull it up.
Once the first paragraphs were down, which might take 1-2 full days, the rest flowed out. Well, came out slowly. Word by word; brick by brick. It eeked it’s way onto the page. The process was that I had to reread what I had written, and then what came next would just follow, seemingly of it’s own accord. The essay felt as though it was writing itself, and my job was to listen very carefully and find the exact words to help it go in the direction it was meant for.
And yet now, I grab a few minutes to sit on a bar stool in my kitchen and attempt to cull something interesting out of my life to deposit here like it’s a savings account. And I find I’m over-drafted. There’s nothing left for this space sometimes.
But even in these moments, bankrupt as I am, I must remember Henry’s verse: be strong and courageous, do not be afraid for god is with you. And it’s the menial, petty days full of sticky little details that lack meaning that often require the most courage and faith…
a spoon full of sugar
I’ve begun a regiment of Homeschool Preschool. I love the cadence of the description. But what is preschool, really? It is learning artfully disguised as play. And I’m finding ways to incorporate learning into everything—like slipping a dog’s medicine into a hotdog slice.
And one of the easiest tricks I’ve discovered is that Henry’s a sponge. I already knew this—any mother knows that if their child hears a bad word once they’ll repeat it over and over and over. But I’ve used this to my advantage. While buzzing around the kitchen preparing lunch, I will say psalm 23 out loud 3 times in a row. I use every opportunity to sneak in facts about fall or the ways our eyes work (they just send images to the brain which is where they are decoded). Introduce new words. Make jokes about how funny our bodies are—the way that they work. Throw adages or nursery rhymes into everyday conversation and then explain them.
I’m sowing seeds. I’m dropping bits of information and inspiration ad hoc onto the soil of my son. Hoping they take root—rejoicing over the moments when I see them sprout up on their own.
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Book and its Covers...
I want to delve into the meat of this move—this changing of space and memory. Into the infinite electric white space of this blog and divulge secrets and wonders, the wisdom of moving and the sharp emotions of it. But the emotions are sea-glass: rounded and indistinct. My response to stress is invariably the same: retreat. And, especially when I find myself in the throes of something as monumental as a cross-country move—it is retreat, escape, numbness. Nothing.
And, unfortunately, both for this blog and for my greater self, it is not a retreat into the mind, from which I can sally forth weeks or months later, heavy laden with riches of thought and encouragement. No. I retreat into a fog of numbness. I disappear within a shroud of quiet. And I read. I simply devour books—any books I can lay my hands on.
Well, not any book. It must be a reread. I want familiar territory. I want to be home the way one can only be home within the covers of a favorite, well-worn, oft-read novel. Because when my world is new and sharp and foreign, I long for Jane Austen’s England, Beryl Markham’s East Africa; even Hogwarts or Forks will do. Anything that will fly me out of my discomfort and land me squarely on ground I’ve tread before.
When I was a child, there was a public service announcement encouraging kids to read. In it a cartoon alley cat, wearing an admiral’s jacket, would leap and swing between the far-flung worlds of space and sea and country; proclaiming what an adventure reading could be. I’ve always been a reader, but it wasn’t until fourth grade that I fell madly in love with it. I can’t for the life of me remember my 4th grade English teacher’s name, only that it started with a “Z” and that she was a slightly terrifying, energetic woman of small stature with short grey hair. When I try to picture her I’m left with the impression of short, quick movements that snap like a firecracker, energy spraying out of her fingertips—her eyes wide.
I’m sure she wasn’t this way at all, but I love that, whoever she is, she has become in my mind a tenacious witch of a woman. She was all energy. And we had homework; homework that we needed to do on our own, each week. Each Friday we had to turn in an index card with the title and author and a short summary of a book (of our choosing) that we’d read that week. I hated this assignment. I’m bad at anything that involves time management, and to have a whole week to accomplish it and to necessarily choose it for ourselves—I would invariably wait until Thursday night. But what I owe Ms. Z is perhaps the magic of immersion in a book that I’ve found. The immersion and the finding are both key and neither can out-weigh the other. It must be a book that has *miraculously* found it’s way to me and it is also key that I lose myself in it entirely.
*Some Kind of Sorcery!*
To lose oneself in a book: when the world disappears completely. When you spend your days in a medieval castle or on a Victorian fox hunt; in the trenches of Verdun or in a plane over Mumbai; deep in the Louisiana Bayou or exactly in the center of Shibuya intersection; ancient China, whaling boat, river rafting barefoot and freckled; encountering first love, loving a soul-mate; finding oneself. An alternate universe; a terrifying future; a mansion of Long Island; a tenement in turn-of-the-century New York.
To be able to feel the pebbled path through the soles of leather-bottomed boots; to feel the sure, hard iron of the stirrup across the ball of the foot; to know the stinging, rough pull of the mainsail and wind-whipped hair—spray of sea—and taste salt when you lick your lips; hear the creak of the old wooden stairs as you creep into the forbidden wing of the manor; sink deep into the expensive, expansive sofa on the Upper West Side, letting the designer flats slip off your feet as you sip a cold, bright white wine.
And yet, all the while I am here, in my pajamas, smack dab in the real world—with IKEA furniture and two napping boys—crushed Cheerios on the floor, bright loud plastic toys.
This is miraculous. This is the breadth of landscape and universe that exists in the small space between the covers of a book.
So forgive me for not reappearing from my summer vacation with anything more than this. I’ve been busy revisiting old landscapes dear to my heart. But I’m beginning to emerge into my now. Into the space where I actually exist…
Oh Windy City, City of Broad Shoulders, let me lean on you now…
And, unfortunately, both for this blog and for my greater self, it is not a retreat into the mind, from which I can sally forth weeks or months later, heavy laden with riches of thought and encouragement. No. I retreat into a fog of numbness. I disappear within a shroud of quiet. And I read. I simply devour books—any books I can lay my hands on.
Well, not any book. It must be a reread. I want familiar territory. I want to be home the way one can only be home within the covers of a favorite, well-worn, oft-read novel. Because when my world is new and sharp and foreign, I long for Jane Austen’s England, Beryl Markham’s East Africa; even Hogwarts or Forks will do. Anything that will fly me out of my discomfort and land me squarely on ground I’ve tread before.
When I was a child, there was a public service announcement encouraging kids to read. In it a cartoon alley cat, wearing an admiral’s jacket, would leap and swing between the far-flung worlds of space and sea and country; proclaiming what an adventure reading could be. I’ve always been a reader, but it wasn’t until fourth grade that I fell madly in love with it. I can’t for the life of me remember my 4th grade English teacher’s name, only that it started with a “Z” and that she was a slightly terrifying, energetic woman of small stature with short grey hair. When I try to picture her I’m left with the impression of short, quick movements that snap like a firecracker, energy spraying out of her fingertips—her eyes wide.
I’m sure she wasn’t this way at all, but I love that, whoever she is, she has become in my mind a tenacious witch of a woman. She was all energy. And we had homework; homework that we needed to do on our own, each week. Each Friday we had to turn in an index card with the title and author and a short summary of a book (of our choosing) that we’d read that week. I hated this assignment. I’m bad at anything that involves time management, and to have a whole week to accomplish it and to necessarily choose it for ourselves—I would invariably wait until Thursday night. But what I owe Ms. Z is perhaps the magic of immersion in a book that I’ve found. The immersion and the finding are both key and neither can out-weigh the other. It must be a book that has *miraculously* found it’s way to me and it is also key that I lose myself in it entirely.
*Some Kind of Sorcery!*
To lose oneself in a book: when the world disappears completely. When you spend your days in a medieval castle or on a Victorian fox hunt; in the trenches of Verdun or in a plane over Mumbai; deep in the Louisiana Bayou or exactly in the center of Shibuya intersection; ancient China, whaling boat, river rafting barefoot and freckled; encountering first love, loving a soul-mate; finding oneself. An alternate universe; a terrifying future; a mansion of Long Island; a tenement in turn-of-the-century New York.
To be able to feel the pebbled path through the soles of leather-bottomed boots; to feel the sure, hard iron of the stirrup across the ball of the foot; to know the stinging, rough pull of the mainsail and wind-whipped hair—spray of sea—and taste salt when you lick your lips; hear the creak of the old wooden stairs as you creep into the forbidden wing of the manor; sink deep into the expensive, expansive sofa on the Upper West Side, letting the designer flats slip off your feet as you sip a cold, bright white wine.
And yet, all the while I am here, in my pajamas, smack dab in the real world—with IKEA furniture and two napping boys—crushed Cheerios on the floor, bright loud plastic toys.
This is miraculous. This is the breadth of landscape and universe that exists in the small space between the covers of a book.
So forgive me for not reappearing from my summer vacation with anything more than this. I’ve been busy revisiting old landscapes dear to my heart. But I’m beginning to emerge into my now. Into the space where I actually exist…
Oh Windy City, City of Broad Shoulders, let me lean on you now…
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Update or What I Did Over Summer Vacation...
Another year, another city. What did I do this summer? Well, in addition to having an absolutely wonderful summer with friends and family in Atlanta, and finally beginning to settle in and feel like I was at home, we also moved to Chicago. In the middle of August, we found out that Gordon would be starting a new job on September 7th. And off we went into the middle of the country, with only enough time to hire movers and wave goodbye on our way out of town. No processing. No emotional impact. Safer that way. So I’m waiting patiently for it to hit me. Wondering if it will, when it will. Some days I think it doesn’t matter one iota where I live, and some days I know for certain that I will miss people and moments so much it hurts once I finally face the fact that I’m in a new city. For now it feels like vacation. I’m still living out of a suitcase, figuring out where things go, no idea where the closest dry cleaner is.
And, in many ways, even when on vacation, my days are always the same. They’re days of blankies and bandaids, spiderman and pots-and-pans-orchestras: filled with the magic of childhood and littered with the debris that accompanies it. We spend our days at the playgrounds or going for walks around the neighborhood. My life is constant in that it still revolves around the two little blond heads in my double stroller.
For now, I’m content. And whether that is me not having processed anything, or me just taking one little step at a time—waiting patiently for nap times and bed times and first glasses of wine (hooray for 5 o’clock!)—here in Chicago just as I did in Atlanta and in San Francisco before that, I am glad that I am still standing, still smiling, still just me. Gordon’s words are coming back to me again: “wherever you go, there you are.”
Here I am.
And, in many ways, even when on vacation, my days are always the same. They’re days of blankies and bandaids, spiderman and pots-and-pans-orchestras: filled with the magic of childhood and littered with the debris that accompanies it. We spend our days at the playgrounds or going for walks around the neighborhood. My life is constant in that it still revolves around the two little blond heads in my double stroller.
For now, I’m content. And whether that is me not having processed anything, or me just taking one little step at a time—waiting patiently for nap times and bed times and first glasses of wine (hooray for 5 o’clock!)—here in Chicago just as I did in Atlanta and in San Francisco before that, I am glad that I am still standing, still smiling, still just me. Gordon’s words are coming back to me again: “wherever you go, there you are.”
Here I am.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Coming Home
Home. Over the past year this word has become a puzzle to me. Something I've tugged at and stretched and picked at, trying desperately to unravel it. To make it cover me where I am. To make my home where I am. Ode to a snail--who carries his home on his back. But we are not snails. We are yard sales of miscellany and collected bits. We overflow into storage rooms and walk-in-closets and corners of basements. Our things proliferate. But even the metaphor of home--even the intangible feeling of what makes us glow inside, what brings a flush to the cheeks--even this is difficult to cultivate and carry.
I'm thinking about Home a lot right now because we've moved again. A spur-of-the-moment move half-way across the country. And we're back in an apartment, and walking everywhere. We're in a city again. I love it. I miss other things. I wonder, as I did less than a year and half ago when I moved to Atlanta, what it's all about. Who I am when I physically move myself to a different space. I'm at the intersection of space and "the now." It's just as confusing and mystifying as the intersection of space and memory. These are the Shibuyas of emotional import.
What makes me who I am? What makes me ok being who I am, where I am. Why is it so difficult for us to be in a new environment--even if it's better? We are creatures of habit I suppose. Especially me. Give me a warm seat and a good book and I won't move til it's done. I could eat the same thing for breakfast lunch and dinner for weeks at a time. And now I'm in Chicago and Gordon works all day and I still haven't gotten myself out of boxes.
I find myself paralyzed. Unable to DO anything. All I want is to sink myself into something that will consume me and take me completely away from here.
And yet.
And yet.
"And yet all the while you are you, you are not me.
And I am I, I am never you.
How awfully distinct and far off from each other's being we are!
Yet I am glad.
I am so glad there is always you beyond my scope,
Something that stands over,
Something I shall never be,
That I shall always wonder over, and wait for,
Look for like the breath of life as long as I live,
Still waiting for you, however old you are, and I am,
I shall always wonder over you, and look for you.
And you will always be with me.
I shall never cease to be filled with newness,
Having you near me."
D.H. Lawrence, "Wedlock"
I'm thinking about Home a lot right now because we've moved again. A spur-of-the-moment move half-way across the country. And we're back in an apartment, and walking everywhere. We're in a city again. I love it. I miss other things. I wonder, as I did less than a year and half ago when I moved to Atlanta, what it's all about. Who I am when I physically move myself to a different space. I'm at the intersection of space and "the now." It's just as confusing and mystifying as the intersection of space and memory. These are the Shibuyas of emotional import.
What makes me who I am? What makes me ok being who I am, where I am. Why is it so difficult for us to be in a new environment--even if it's better? We are creatures of habit I suppose. Especially me. Give me a warm seat and a good book and I won't move til it's done. I could eat the same thing for breakfast lunch and dinner for weeks at a time. And now I'm in Chicago and Gordon works all day and I still haven't gotten myself out of boxes.
I find myself paralyzed. Unable to DO anything. All I want is to sink myself into something that will consume me and take me completely away from here.
And yet.
And yet.
"And yet all the while you are you, you are not me.
And I am I, I am never you.
How awfully distinct and far off from each other's being we are!
Yet I am glad.
I am so glad there is always you beyond my scope,
Something that stands over,
Something I shall never be,
That I shall always wonder over, and wait for,
Look for like the breath of life as long as I live,
Still waiting for you, however old you are, and I am,
I shall always wonder over you, and look for you.
And you will always be with me.
I shall never cease to be filled with newness,
Having you near me."
D.H. Lawrence, "Wedlock"
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