Recognition

There are moments when you see in one glance the complex, awkward and profound thoughts that swirl in your child's head and you recognize them as your own complex awkward and profound thoughts, filtered through yet another layer of genes, DNA and experience.

There are moments when you are fully humbled by the wide world that is in front of your child, and by their ability to confront it with courage, with a quiet inner strength that is scared beyond measure and determined to go face the scary anyway.

There are moments when you see with piercing clarity the individual your child has become: the growth in their limbs is matched by the growth of their heart and the stretching of their mind.

There are moments when the fog lifts, and you see the fragile exquisite human that your child is, and how their heart matches your heart in so many ways. You see, and you know, how their heart crumbles when they feel they've gotten it wrong, when they feel they've been misunderstood, when they want nothing more than to make it right.

There are moments, a few rare brief and beautiful moments when the crushing knowledge of all that you must do as a parent is bathed in the light of a late summer morning - and the knowledge becomes a gift instead of a burden.

There are moments when you would like nothing more than to capture a few snapshots of a happy Back to School Morning, and instead you glimpse the depths and the heights of what it is to parent. Of what it is to have an almost-eight-year-old own your heart in a million ways. Of what Grace is.

I found all this in the face of my girl yesterday morning, and I am so profoundly grateful.

There are moments when you want to see the ordinary, and instead you find grace.

The Affair

I'm starting an affair.

You don't need to hide your shocked faces. It's ok. In the spirit of over-sharing that is the hallmark of this blog, I thought I'd just come clean and let you all know at once.



Mr NilsenLife knows about it, and is incredibly supportive, if a bit worried about how it'll play out. My kids know about it, and as with most things I decide, they figure if Mommy thinks it's smart, they'll go along with the plan. My parents know too. They think it's the right thing for my family.

So: I'm starting an affair - an affair with homeschool.

I flirted heavily with homeschool last year. In fact, I think it's safe to say that homeschool and I got to third base: I bought a full curriculum, notified the school, made lesson plans. But at the last minute, I chickened out.

I couldn't go through with it. It's risky behavior - dare I say transgressive? Maybe not so much anymore. Maybe lots of people are doing it and as usual I'm late to the swingin' party.

When I tell friends about it, the 'holy moly, I thought this girl was sane!' thought bubble pops up momentarily. Then they smile and say "I'm sure you can do it. I'm just not the kind of person who could ever do that." They're not judging; rather, they're worried about me. They're concerned that I don't know what I'm getting into. They worry about what it'll do to my family.

But the allure of homeschool... so seductive. Slow mornings in pajamas, school outside at the picnic table on nice days, allowing time in the schedule for snow storms or beautiful spring afternoons, field trips every week if we want. We will indulge a small scientist's fascination with The Way Things Work, we will examine the Walters Art Gallery at our leisure, away from the weekend crowds, and we will take a tour of the fire station.

Everyone knows affairs have their dark side. Knowing you're flouting conventions, always wondering if you're doing the right thing: all of this will arise I'm sure. Perhaps by missing kindergarten in a classroom, my boy-child may be deprived of the experience of a lifetime. Who knows.

What I do know is that I don't enter into this without thought, without some serious prayer. I am following a mother's heart, and much of what's in my head backs my heart up. I have a little guy who isn't quite ready to sit in circle time and listen. A bright boy who is incredibly curious, incredibly thoughtful, and convinced it is not his right to demand any attention. A small boy, born with a full head of hair and a serious expression - both make him seem more grown up than he is. A boy who's learned to disappear in the noise and stress of a houseful of people - a boy who deserves his moments in the sun with Mom.



He will make his way in the world. He will do beautifully in school when he gets there. But for one short beautiful season in his life, he will be allowed to be just Lars.

I'm getting involved in this thing for my boy.

Capacity

I had a chat with a friend of mine today, about God-given gifts. I do believe we are given these gifts by the Divine. And then I sort of think that the Divine sits back, grabs a cold beverage, and waits to see what we'll do with them. (Rooting for us all the way, of course.) Let's just say I don't believe that the Gifts come with receipts for exchange or return.

So. God-given gifts. Turns out my gift is the capacity for great love. (Not great lovin'. Although maybe that too. I just haven't had enough wine to blog about it.)

Ahem.

Great Love.

This is the space in your heart to love someone - be it spouse or friend or sibling - with the depth and breadth of all emotion. Maybe it could be described as Super Loyalty: an unfailing belief in my people, regardless of missteps, ill-chosen words or outfits, even the most awkward of moments. (What? Kiss me and then vomit on my new shoes? No, I'm sure you didn't. I don't remember that at all!)

But this capacity for love can be crippling. Because to love that much? It hurts. And it is never more painful than when you are watching those you love grow, change, and do all the painful things that humans must do to become more - to get bigger according to the Existential Size Chart of The Universe. It hurts to be along for the ride, even if you're not the one doing the growing that particular day. Did I ever tell y'all about the year I grew 8 inches and woke many nights with searing pain in my limbs, as I literally felt my legs stretch into a 34" inseam? These are the same searing pains, just in your heart.

But equally, when you experience love this deeply, you will also live with transcendent joy. You will feel the moments of gut-busting pride, the seconds of evanescent enchantment when happiness trumps all, when dark and sad and bleak become mere grease stains on the hem of delight's napkin.

Come Monday, I will put my eight year old on the bus. I will send her to a new teacher, and trust my girl's sensitive loving heart to go out in the world and come back intact. Then, I will take my five year old and my two year old by the hand and we will walk a trail and look for the first signs of autumn, and I will show them "how this life became a miracle to me."

I came across this Dar Williams song this week - a friend posted it and commented that ''this is for all those parents sending their child out into the world this week."



Again and again the chorus muses "so when they ask how far love goes/ When my job's done, you'll be the one who knows."

This is what I do with my gift: I show them how far love goes.

Getting clean

Had to take last week off, but we're back on track with The Red Writing Hood this week.  Today the assignment is "writing a first-person piece about [...] taking a shower - without using a personal pronoun." Egads, thought I.  The personal pronoun is the blogger's BFF! What is one to do?  Sit down of an evening, and bash out her best effort, that's what one is to do.  Here ya go peeps - Description.

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Getting Clean

Cranking the hot water faucet with an impatient twist of the wrist.  Stupid plumbing.  Stupid old house.  Stripping the sweaty running shirt off, then the sports bra, the shorts, the rank socks, the grimy shoes.  Gotta get new running shoes.  Sigh.

Tweaking the cold water, just an eigth-inch: hard lessons have taught that otherwise it turns more refreshing than God or a health teacher ever intended.  Hopping in, over the 42 cups stacked just so, the firefighter rubber duck, the sandpail making a mysterious appearance in the tub.  Eyeing the old fiberglass shower stall, irritated.  Stupid bathroom.  Stupid old ugly bathroom.

Eyes to the ceiling, water streaming through eyelashes, eyelids shut tight.  Too tight.  Shutting out the noise from Elmo downstairs, the banging washing machine - that can NOT be right - the weeping of a toddler on the steps.  Shutting out thoughts of calls to be made, appointments to be kept, bills to be paid.

With eyes shut tight the tan fiberglass tub and its raised sunray pattern disappears.  With eyes shut tight the Costco-sized shampoo becomes the fancy volume building 'product' that once made a difference, the Cetaphil becomes the facial scrub that used to be ritually applied with a 2" square of muslin, the body wash doesn't have a disturbing scent of Berry Blast or a cap designed as a dolphin mutant.

With eyes shut tight there is no self.  No aging skin to be examined, no belly pudge to be avoided, no piercing scars to sigh over.  There is a human, a sweaty naked real human in the middle of streams of water, forgetting self.  Forgetting for six minutes that she is anything but body, water,  more body, more water.

That, that, is getting clean.

Oil & Vinegar

It's a good thing this ol' blog is a typed out thing.  Because at the moment I'm biting my tongue.  Biting my tongue and not saying the mean and vicious things that I want to SCREAM at my beautiful, bright and constantly bickering children. 

It's the oldest two in particular:  Miss C is almost 8 and as frilly feminine as they come.  She loves dolls, dresses, and writing long stories about the Revolutionary War and the wives those soldiers left at home. (I kid you not.)  Mr Lars is 5, and All Boy.  If he knew what snips and snails were, or had access to puppy dog tails, he'd be all over those.  As it stands, he's been obsessed with machines, tools, building and mechanics since before he could walk. To him, happiness is the chance to mow the lawn with his dad.

They are oil and vinegar.  Gas in a diesel engine.   Sunscreen and eyeballs.  Anything you can think of that doesn't mix well - those are my kids. 
 
Now they can play beautifully with other children - on playdates, or with cousins, the play is happy, considerate, imaginative.  They are able to involve opposite genders in their play, and are so gifted at finding ways to include, to incorporate, to facilitate. 

When asked to play together for 30 minutes, there is excellent money to be made on a bet that it'll end in tears, shouting, screeching, or - more typically - all of the above.

Deceptively cute.  So deceptive.

I am ill with jealousy when I hear stories of other siblings who get along well.  Siblings who will make up elaborate games of make believe, will troop through the yard on adventures together, will snuggle in bed and let the elder read them all a story. 

Not at our house.  The sibling rivalry has reached fever pitch, to the point where if one claims to love say, watermelon, the other will swear a jihad on all melons until he/she takes their dying breath.  If one child finds a certain bedtime story scary, the other will deliberately choose it every night.   If one sibling does something uniquely noteworthy, the other will find the snidest thing possible to say, even if they know it'll earn them a session on the timeout step.

Just now, I sent them both to their rooms.  I couldn't bear to hear one more whine, one more exasperated 'LAH-RUS!', one more slap fight.   I'm done.  I'm out of ideas. 

So I'm asking you to help me out here.  I've gone ahead & lowered the veil, shown you the dark side of NilsenLife, and I genuinely need a good solution.  I have an abiding and profound affection for my two brothers, and would love to be laying the foundation for that with my children.  But right now?  I think I'll be doing well to get them both to 18 without permanent bodily harm inflicted.

Got any tips?  Any bright ideas that your parents used for you and your siblings - that you do with your kids?  NOW WOULD BE THE TIME TO SHARE, PLEASE.  Thankyouverymuch.

Signed
I Might Lock Them Up Otherwise

The Big Reveal

Patent leather. 

Say that to almost any female of a certain age, and immediately she'll conjure images of party shoes, of shiny church shoes with a neat little strap over their arch, and ruffly socks.   Pretty.  Shiny.  Special.  Patent leather, people.  

They're high - a solid 3" at least, and let me tell you, at nigh on six feet I really don't need the extra inches (ba dum dum), but it sure is fun.  A platform toe, a nice line to the heel... we're talking a really beautiful shoe.  For bonus points, there is (I kid you not) Nike Air technology in the heel which may or may not make me want to bust out in a jog on the way into church.

Some of my most faithful readers may remember the long-ago posts about my quest for the perfect black shoe (Part I here, and Part II here).  What most of you won't know is that the search has continued for two long years.  Two years, people!

I finally broke down & made the commitment this week.  I hear you fashionistas out there sucking your teeth and thinking 'Really?  TWO YEARS to come up with these?'  Let's just say I don't enter into a shoe purchase lightly or unadvisedly.

Finally, order is restored to the Universe, and NilsenLife can continue its little orbit.   Kirsten's got herself a new pair of shoes.

Sneaky Words

Lately I've been thinking about words.

Duh, you say.  Isn't that what you writer people think about all the time?  Isn't that what you, like, DO?

Well, yeah.  But I mean I've really been thinking about words.  Sneaky little bastards.

See, words can let you down. The words, they hang back when you want 'em most.  They play coy when you really need them to put on a big show, to SAY exactly what you want them say.  You stumble over them,  they twist up in your ankles and make you feel clumsy, inept, inarticulate.

Like small naughty children, they run away from you.  Or, they can get all stopped up in your head like a toddler refusing to potty train, and then, hoo boy - all hell can break loose when they finally do get out. Everyone around for a 40 foot radius is sorry when that happens.

The words, they hang around in your head doing gymnastics:  first carefully choreographed into this sentence, then into that one, then flipped around with all the words in different order. Then, pile 'em all up and watch them collapse into a heap of garbled nonsense when it's time for the big show.

Sometimes, sometimes, the words play double agent.  They attack with slicing dicing precision,  they say exactly what you had in your head, they escape with a will of their own, and wreak surgically accurate havoc.  Before you know it, you've scorched the territory around you with the words you used, so helpless were you in their power-driven onslaught.  Betrayed, you are - betrayed by the megalomaniacal words.

But oh, the mystical moments of transcendence:  the fleeting seconds when the words become your lovers, do your bidding, understand your every intention, want to please.  They band together, they create something so much bigger than they are individually.  They create chemistry, magic, intoxication.   They bare your heart in all the right places, they lift you up beyond yourself, make you know what it is to be Better.

This is why we write, us writing people.  Looking for those words that make us - and you, when you read them - Better.  Bigger.  Best.

Wordless Wednesday

You want my whole world, in one photo? Here you go.

(Don't those Nilsens scrub up good?)

You make me laugh

Maniacal giggling as they scheme to overturn their grandpa's float in the pool.

Happy shrieks as they chase the Westie around and around and around in circles.

Silly guffaws as Daddy slays them with ridiculous knock knock jokes. 

Sly chuckles as someone wonders if they'll get busted breaking the rules of Candy Land.

Snickers from the adults as a series of entirely inappropriate double entendres get tossed above the kids' heads.  

Uproarious, gut-aching laughing at the dinner table as we remember stories of other childhoods, of other grandparents now gone, of other family vacations together.

I posted a few months back about wondering where my sillies had gone.  I found 'em this week.  They were right here - right with the same 3 kids that I scold all week to pick up laundry, hang up towels, and take dishes to the sink.  My sillies were right here in the minivan on a 12-hour drive that could only be survived through fits of giggles and a suspension of all seriousness.  They were right here with my husband, snorting with laughter late in the night as we tripped over small bodies in sleeping bags to get to our bed.  They were right here with my second grade girl as she and I swam like seals and slipped on our bellies on top of pool floats, off into the water.   There were here with my aunt and I as we traded dirty jokes about yoga poses and ended up laughing hysterically. They were here with my uncle's dry wit, my dad's tragic puns, and my own quirky take on the world. 

Yep, that's right.  I found my sillies. 

My grandmother,  profoundly wise woman that she was, would often wipe her eyes after a good chuckle, and say "it's no laughing matter, but its no matter if you laugh."  I can't offer anyone the recipe for success, the no-fail technique for a happy life.  But I have the most distinct hunch that a crowd that can laugh - laugh so hard your sides ache and tears squeeze out of your eyes - is a crowd that can make it through most things.  

"You make me laugh." - it's ultimate compliment around here.

This post is linked to Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time blog carnival on Laughter.  How could posts on that be hard to read? Go check 'em out!!

Ending

it's Saturday morning, and NilsenLife is late again. It's the time of the week when we stretch our creative writing muscles over there at Red Writing Hood, and this week's assignment was a narrative poem about family dynamics. Better late than never, right?

**************

Ending.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

like every morning for forty six years

we sat and the sun poured in onto our chilly hearts.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

you stared into the woods

i stared into the street, watching neighbors kiss morning goodbyes.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

you pushed papers across the table, and said

i think it's time.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

i stared into the woods with you, and said

yes. i think it's time.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i

like every morning for forty six years

and agreed we were done.

**********

**UPDATE: please remember with all this creative writing that it's fiction. Mr NilsenLife & I are doing just fine, thanks. (And, we've not been married for even half of 46 years!)

Swimming Laps

If twelve hours in the car with 3 small children and their grandma, way too many snack food products and driving through the night fueled by coffee doesn't leave you in need of a dip in the pool, I don't know what will.

I slipped into the cool water intending just to swim a few laps. For the first few strokes my triceps and biceps moaned loudly about how old I'm getting, I decided this was a terrible idea, I thought I might as well stop there in the middle and start doing old-lady water aerobics. It took the next few strokes to silence the chatter of voices in my head - all of the 'should dos' and 'why didn't I's' slunk quietly away.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

the habit, the rhythm, the cadence of the stroke took over, and my muscles repeated the movement over and over, up and down. I wasn't counting laps, or speed, or time. Just swam up and down the pool, over and over.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

I watched the sun refract at the bottom of the pool into a million watery squares, like so many scales of a rainbow fish.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

I registered with a shock this was the first time I'd swum more than ten uninterrupted laps in close to ten years. I thought about how much time I've spent in the water in my life, how many hours, and then thought about how few hours I've spent by myself in the water recently.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

Treading water - that's what I've been doing. I've spent my recent years treading water - working my arms and legs as hard as they'd go, keeping my head above water, keeping my focus on what needs to happen next. Treading water isn't the same as floating - treading water is work. It's a holding pattern, with a distinct subtext of survival in there.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

But in recent months I've been.... surfacing. Not working so hard to stay in one place. I've been getting ready to swim: to strike out in new directions with long strong strokes. Turns out the strokes are second nature to me - I haven't forgotten how to do it.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

The long brown arm that crooks high above my head and then slices back into the water stops being part of my body and instead beckons as it hovers above me for a second, then propels as it pulls underneath me.  'C'mon - this way!' it says. 'Keep moving' it says 'you'll get there.'

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

Fifty minutes later I flipped over on my back and floated in the baking August sun. Closed my eyes, pointed my face to the sky, and smiled as I floated. I'm not treading water: these days, I'm swimming.

Pickles

So it's supposed to be a Friday thing. It is.  But I have to tell you, I can't just walk away from a week's worth of noodling & then a bunch of writing, deleting, and more writing.  So I'll just go ahead & link up. I'm participating in a creative writing meme called the Red Writing Hood. Ericka from Alabaster Cow and Cheryl from Mommypants are hosting it over at The Red Dress Club. Join in, link up, check out all the posts! 

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She's six feet tall, for God's sake - she's not hard to miss.  I whip around the corner just to grab a jar of pickles, and there she is:  all seventy two inches of her.  She stands, with that ridiculous perfect posture of hers, squinting at the shelves of canned goods. She's mumbling 'butter beans...butter beans....butter beans...' under her breath.

The exhausting memory of the last time we talked assaults my brain:  I remember the long pauses as she'd furiously searched for the words to make clear to me precisely what a fuckup I was.  

Why her? my friends had all asked the first time.  Seriously?  She's cute and all, but she's a little....boring.  Hell, we were fifteen.  Straight edge, rocker, geek, freak - the labels had barely settled on kids that young. She was.... none of those things. She was just.... not me. Not like me at all.

Why her? my friends all asked the second time.  Only that time it was different friends, a different town, a rougher life.  These friends couldn't understand either, what it was about this plain-vanilla suburban girl that fascinated me. How could I explain to these people that by choosing someone who was everything I was not, and nothing that I was, I could clean the slate? That I could make it all possible, all over again?

This girl - so different.   She was crazy smart, used complicated words to say simple things, made every phone call a challenge to follow complicated metaphors and long-winded ideas.  I wanted it to be simple: her + me = happy.  She wanted.... more than that.  She wanted so much, she was used to so much, and in her quiet way she made me feel, every time, that I hadn't said enough, hadn't said it right.  I was messing up the clean slate.

It was a long hot summer.  I said the wrong things, she said mean things.  Her face soured in the stuffy apartment, and I wished for us that we could be anywhere but stuck in this humid angry city.  I wished we could've found a chilled vacation-y place of possibility, but instead we'd found ourselves in the dead-end alley of unmet expectations.

Any second now she'll turn around and catch me staring.  Of course she'll recognize me.  Maybe she'll smile the fake white-girl smile of HeyHowAREYou?!?!, or maybe she'll give me the flat angry stare she fixed on me that last time.  I really don't want to find out.

At the last second, I look past her, to her cart holding a giggly toddler, crinkling her nose and eyes with a grin that drills a hole in my heart - a smile exactly like her mother's.  That smile I remember, fifteen years later, the smile that made everything right.  I ditch the pickles, turn on my heel, and walk away.

What I want

What I want to do is write. 

What I want to do is sit at my desk and write the Red Writing Hood post that I've been noodling over since Tuesday.  I want to write the article for Classic Play that my extremely patient editor has been waiting on for, oh, say,  TWO WEEKS. [yes - deadline - come & gone.  lost in the wind.]  Hang on:  rather, let's say I want to re-write that article, because I've written it in my head about 46 times, and it's making me crazy, living in there. I want to curl up on the sofa with a glass of wine and write in my journal - write out all the tangly thoughts that won't work themselves into real ideas, write out all the complicated words that are too much ME for the rest of the world to have to suffer through.

But what I want to do is not going to happen.  Not this week. 

Instead, what I will do is my day job.  My day job that's also my night job which is my morning job which is my evening job.  I will drive to and from Vacation Bible School, providing canned good donations on Thursday and snacks on Friday.  I will come home and put stuff away and wash popsicle stains out of t-shirts.  I will nurse one out of three kids all week - they will very politely take turns with their illness, and leave a space of about 2 hours between one recovering from a 103-degree fever and the next falling on the couch holding their head.  I will read stories and practice math facts and clean up grilled cheese sandwiches and wonder about soccer in the fall and wonder about when exactly it was that I got so desperate for time to myself.

I will remember that it was always - that before kids it was work and before work it was school and that there was always something that had to be done, and that this idea of endless hours to pursue one's passions is abso-freaking-lutely unreasonable.  Nice to imagine, but completely without base in reality.

So - I will do what my friend Cheryl so charmingly calls 'putting on my Mommypants.'   I will suck it up and I will do it and I will make long lists in my head in my head of all that I want to do, all by myself.   For that long dreamed of and oft-mentioned Next Life.

Fourteen

They didn't think anyone was listening.  Two waiters, gossiping over the canape trays whilst they waited for more bruschetta and mini quiche.

They're so cute, aren't they??
Yeah... they are.
You know, a lot of these gigs you totally know the couple's not going to make it past five years.  But this couple?  You can just tell they're going to make it. They're for real.

Two catering waiters, maybe working a summer job to get back to Georgetown in the fall.  They passed judgement on this young couple, in the midst of the happiest night of their life, passed judgement without emotion, without investment.

What they didn't know was that the best man stood directly behind them, waiting to refill his gin & tonic from the secret stash in the fridge (woot! for non-alcoholic weddings).    He heard them, and his heart swelled.  Because he knew too - he knew this couple was the real deal. He knew that they would fight and they would cry and they would laugh - laugh so much -  and they would be broke and they would be rich.  They would be rich in all they needed.

He knew they would make it.  And on the eve of their 14th anniversary, he emailed this:  "happy anniversary my dears. love you guys!  you have - and are going to - make it."

see the brand-spankin-new wedding band? ooh, shiny!

Happy Anniversary - happy anniversary to the man who makes me laugh, who makes me crazy, who is my biggest champion and my very best friend.  This year we earned it, my love.  May fourteen be the smallest drop in a huge bottomless bucket of anniversaries.

My BlogHer '10 Post

Did you ever plan a trip for more than four months?

Did you ever look forward to something so much that you woke up in the middle of the night excited about going?

Did you ever plan a trip that was going to be a really amazing 4 day weekend with some of your favorite people in the world?  A trip that would involve a nice long train ride with a dear friend that you hadn't caught up with in like, forever, and have a few juicy stories you've really needed to tell her?

Did you ever psych yourself up to meet people who intimidate the crap out of you but that you were dying to meet anyway?

Did you ever buy a bunch of new clothes for this kind of trip, wanting to find stuff that looked exactly like 'you'?

Did you ever plan a trip that was going to be completely on-your-own adventure in New York, with restaurants and cocktails and museums and hours of writing and coffee with the ladies and... and... everything else lovely that you could pack into a girls weekend?

AND THEN, did you ever send an email to your friend, asking what time the train left on Thursday and have her write back and say "you mean next Thursday, right?" with a little smiley emoticon?

AND THEN did you ever have your heart sink right down to your toenails (those toenails scheduled for a pre-trip pedicure) as you double-checked your calendar?

AND THEN did you realize that for FOUR MONTHS you've had the big trip (organized around a huge conference) written on the wrong place on your calendar?  That you've planned this entire trip on the WRONG WEEKEND?

AND THEN did you realize that the only other weekend that you're out of town the entire summer is the weekend of the actual conference?

No?  Yeah. Well.  Me either.  ME EITHER.

Nothing new under the Sun

I put up corn yesterday.

Do any of you even know what it means, when I say "I put up corn" ??  Maybe you do, if you've been reading your kids the Little House on the Prairie series this summer.

It was me, my mom, and SIX DOZEN EARS OF CORN, fresh from the farmers market, in the kitchen yesterday.  95 degrees outside, two huge pots of boiling water inside, and two women never more glad of the decision to install air conditioning in the Great Money Pit Renovations of '05.

We shucked - and shucked some more.  (No child labor laws were broken.)  Filled a whole laundry basket with uncooked corn cobs.  Dropped corn in boiling water - no longer than 3 minutes, per the matriarch! - and then plunked unceremoniously into an icy bath in the sink.  I was in charge of separating millions of kernels from cobs - spraying corn juice and stray niblets all over the kitchen.

Maybe it felt a little throwback.  Maybe it felt a little excessive, bagging and freezing 72 cobs' worth of corn for the winter months when you can buy a tidy little pound bag of frozen corn at Trader Joes. (Ooh!  Another trip to TJs?  I'll go! I'll go!)

But I'll tell you.  What felt exactly right was standing in the kitchen with my mother, slicing kernels in the same way, with the same knives, that my grandmothers did.  I listened to my mother's stories of canning and freezing with her mother, her mother in law - my grandmothers.  I heard tales of my great-grandma that were entirely new to me (imagine your mother chaperoning you through college! Out of state! For four years!)

What felt exactly right was taking my place in the rhythm of things.  Repeating the patterns, traditions and activities of generations before me, and living lessons for at least one generation after me. This, this is how we preserve the fabric of history.  We remember what has gone before.  We value what has gone before.  We re-live what has gone before, even as we learn - daily - all of the lessons required of us in this brave new world.

As wise old Solomon told us, there truly is nothing new under the sun.  And the sooner we learn to celebrate that, the wiser we all will be.

Wanna Go Deep With Me?

A while back I told you I'd have to explore the meaning behind water's elemental call sometime later, when things cooled off a bit.  Well it's the third week of July, and we're looking at another week of high 90s, high humidity, and I'm still angling to spend the majority of my days in the water.

So I thought maybe we should just dive right in. Ha!  Today I'm guest posting over at Katdish, about an early memory of being alone in the deep water.

Can I just tell you, I'm still hyperventilating a little bit about this, not just because Kathy is a tremendous writer herself, but because she also takes the time to find and really encourage new writers who are just starting to dip their toes in the writing pool.  I was floored and a little overcome by her offer of a guest post, but I was all over it like, well...... like sunscreen on a red-headed toddler.

Random fact:  she was also one of my very first Twitter peeps.  She's on fire on the Twitter machine, let me tell ya.

There's a lot to be said about water, and its profound call to our hearts.  Maybe we'll have to do a little bit of thinking on this in the next few weeks.  Bit of virtual cooling off.

But for now, go on over to Katdish and check out Going Deep - join me in the murky muddy pond water, won't you?

Busy weekend?

Why yes, yes it was a busy weekend, now you mention it.

Let's see... swim team potluck & pep rally (Friday night) :: swim team photos (Saturday a.m.) :: swim meet, 7.30 a.m. to 1pm :: lunch with grandparents :: big manly chainsaw project :: Tour de France Junior party, complete with a red dotted hill-climb jersey, flags to wave, and Gallic cocktails for grownups :: early Sunday 4-mile run :: church :: lunch at Grandma's house :: Slip n' Slide on grandma's front lawn :: dinner with friends

= EXHAUSTED.   

And no clean up time.  At all.  The entire weekend.  Wanna see?

This is our front hall.  The place where Every. Single. Blessed. Item got DUMPED as we walked in the door this weekend.  Dumped, forgotten, and abandoned as we moved on to next activity, next activity, next activity. [Do you love Mr NilsenLife chilling in the middle of it all?? Oh yes, I do too. Mmm hmm.]

Clearly, I have no shame.  My poor mother will be mortified when she sees I've published this evidence of my slothful housekeeping.

But just wanted to say that even people trying to keep it simple sometimes....... don't.

Have a great week y'all!!

Magic and Meatloaf

Today – and every Friday – I will be participating in a creative writing meme called the Red Writing Hood. Ericka from Alabaster Cow and Cheryl from Mommypants are hosting it over at The Red Dress Club. Join in, link up, check out all the posts! This week’s prompt is to begin a short fiction piece with the words, “Your mother.”  Disclaimer: First attempt at genuine fiction since a very fraught experience in college. I'm generally much better at -ahem- stretching the truth. 

MAGIC AND MEATLOAF

Your mother was magic.  Mine was meatloaf.

Your mother knew you were going to propose, and still she screamed into the phone when we called with our news.  My mother smiled, and murmured approving words.

Your mother let me try on her wedding gown, and even as we laughed at how badly it fit me we both knew the moment had marked our hearts in a happy way.  My mother looked confused when I asked if she had her gown:  "who has the space to store that sort of thing??" she queried incredulously.

Your mother gave a giant picnic basket as an engagement gift:  real linen napkins, champagne flutes, diminutive salt shakers.  My mother gave us a juicer - purchased in the 80s, she'd given it a good wipedown and it was practically new.

Your mother lobbied for engraved invitations, and when we hesitated at the cost she graciously agreed you could scarcely see the difference anyway.  My mother furrowed her forehead in confusion as I searched for the perfect typeface for the program.

Your mother enthused on long-distance phone calls as we described our tiny newlywed apartment, and sent napkin rings in the mail - "to make your dinner table pretty!" the note inside cheered.  My mother visited, and sat quietly as I served roasted vegetables on our wedding china.  "I like the view here" she volunteered.

Your mother kept hugging me with tight hugs when we visited, even as the brightness of happy newlywed anecdotes faded.  If my mother noticed the lack of news, the increasingly-tense emails, the solo visits home, she never mentioned it.

Your mother sent beautiful cards, inscribed with simple messages of love, forgiveness, patience.  My mother came to the apartment one bleak October day and wordlessly packed the china, the napkin rings, the picnic basket, and most heartbreaking: the photo albums documenting our years together.  Certainly, there would be no album documenting our coming moments of leave-taking.

Your mother was magic.  My mother was meatloaf.  Neither was enough to make Us.

Corner of One's Own

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.  - Virginia Woolf

And such is the mission of the blogger.  The evanescent thoughts that flit through a scattered brain - the half-ideas that seem to be the tip of the iceberg of Something Good:  these are the domain of the online writer.  The writer of things that may last just a few hours - but a writer nonetheless.

In Virginia Woolf's mind, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."  The blogger might not create fiction, might be writing the ideas that skate somewhere between truth and fiction, and as such she might be obliged to make do with a (just a little bit of) money and a corner of her own. 

Here's my corner:

What do you find in a Corner of One's Own?

:: my Mac (much loved but as-yet-mysterious) ::
:: blankets, warm with memories and woolly smelling ::
:: an ancient apple-picking ladder from a once-upon-a-time farm ::
:: my well worn mini-Moleskine notebook (1 of 3 on the go) ::
:: iPod shuffle ::
:: pretty folders. because who can pay bills out of ugly ones? ::
:: a favorite painting by Jeremy Satterlund - a friend & incredible artist ::
:: a banged up old table repurposed for My Corner ::

:: my wedding picture, and my grandmother's.  Two very different weddings, two very similar women ::
:: my collection of pens - black ink preferable, rollerball required ::

I choose to ignore the stack of papers to sort on the *other* side of the desk.  I'll ignore the laundry piled in stacks on the table behind me.  I'll ignore the morass of electrical cords snaking out from under the desk.   I'll celebrate the small spots of happy in my corner, and I'll write.  Today, I'll write.

*******

Speaking of writing - maybe even [gasp!] fiction - why don't you head on over to check out The Red Dress Club?  It's a new site for writers looking to take chances, regardless of the state of their Room.  (Or Corner.)