A post in pictures
Artichokes for dinner: a Bean favorite. Mine too. We eat all the way to the heart, dipping each leaf in lemon butter; then wonder at the purple and pale green thistle center.
It’s suddenly warm here. Days perfect for drinking fizzy water and limes. Days for getting first sunburns, working in the garden. A week of vacation: to catch up on writing and sleep and time with my boys.
Bean and I spend every second outdoors in the afternoons, ambling through our meadows, taking stock of everything that is new and green and budding. He found these old baskets from last autumn’s crysanthemums on the brush pile we’re preparing to burn. Natraully, they offered endless entertainment.
Made the first batch of sun tea this week. The temperature has hit 80, and it’s almost soporific. Just two weeks ago I was wearing down and socks, now I’m barefoot, my toes badly in need of a pedicure.
Writing, upstairs, alone in the house, I heard a thud. Unmistakable, reminding me of a childhood in the Rocky Mountains in a big-windowed cabin and my dad, holding stunned birds in his quiet palms. They always flew away, and compelled, I went downstairs and out the screen door looking. It was there, below the frong windows, wings spread wide, eyes closed. But I scooped it up gently, and held it. (My dad always said holding the birds helped them with the shock.) And eventually, he started to blink, and move about, then perched for a while on my thumb before flying off. A small blessing.
Wildflowers suddenly everywhere, and insects. I’m so damn grateful to be through with winter.
We hung Bean’s first tree swing yesterday. So much nostalgia from childhood: my feet scraping the blue bowl of sky.
I found two today, the first of the year. I think of them as my writing talismans. Last year they brough so much: my writing group, Pam, a piece to be published this summer in the Sun. I’ve pressed them in my new Molskine.
He’s just so beautiful. Yesterday in the garden he was stomping about. “I’m going to get the moon,” he said, and then wandered off, gesturing that he’d gotten it and was holding it and bringing it back. “I brought you the moon, Mommy,” he said, beaming.
Weasel
A weasel found it’s way into the coop, the way only weasels can. Murderous and thrilling at the kill, it went after every hen, the sick rooster (who was getting better!) first, taking their heads, leaving blood splattered across the glass panes on the door. When I came home DH was in the coop gathering up the decapitated bodies, already frozen. We’re not sure when it came, how long it stayed, how it got in even. Flatlanders, the two of us. We should have known the signs broadcast all over last night: the scent of musk; the skipity tracks in the snow, not a squirrels, and too small for a drowsy skunk or hibernating raccoon.
Two hens, that’s all that’s left, of six, total, including the ailing rooster. It’s what happens, here, anywhere, the food chain and so forth, but it still sucks. I pulled on rubber boots (new ones, pretty with black and red and white flowers) and old fleece gloves and raked out loads of blood flecked hay and scat. We almost had it cornered (I keep wanting to call it a him, but who knows? And it gives me the shivers to think how naturally I assume the gender of a killer, even animal, and small with a mink black coat and a rust colored underbelly.) Both of us feeling fierce enough to kill it, and I grazed it with my boot, but it made a get-away out the door, and when we followed it’s tracks, we found it’s likely living under the shed on the other side. Vermin.
I knew it could happen, even when we got the half-dozen of them, itty-bitty and peeping, just a day old in the mail. We picked them up at the post office, and I kept saying maybe we should get more, in case. Now there are two, and while I cleaned the coop they sat on the roost above my head, the one shoving it’s head into the soft feathered underbelly of the other, twittering in that low, purring way hens do.
This is what we picked, choosing rural life. The likelihood of weasels, tracks zig-zagging the snow. Now that the January cold has set in, this is the season of hunger for small warm blooded things that do not sleep in the ground or in nests or burrows until spring. We wanted to feel closer to the land, and I keep an animal tracking guide on my desk. But I’ve grown lazy and fat and distracted in the warmth of my house, writing heaps of paragraphs furiously (for a deadline: this Saturday) and eating pineapple upside down cake (for my birthday.) I grew up on the stories of Sterling North, and when I am outdoors, the land sings and I feel it in my bones. I love the barren maples and the way the ice is dark and slick over the places where water and mud used to bisect the trail.
So even as I’m feeling like punching the wall and I’m googling weasel traps, I’m already planning for more: hens, chicks, beehives, lamas, a garden. Maybe not all this spring, or even this year, but over the course of the years here. Because even when I’m dizzy and distracted, as I am right now: balancing on the very tiniest rung of the tall ladder reaching up towards the sickle moon of my dreams, these things pull me back. Nothing like chicken manure and a mess of bloodied feathers to pull you back into the right-here-now of life.
These things are my Polaris, giving the twirling compass of my heart a north to true towards in the dark winter days when I’m crazy with words and to-do lists and hectic schedules and friends I haven’t kept in touch with; or in summer when the evening sun hangs in the sky until almost ten and I’m drowsy and sun drunk and undirected. Still. I’m sad tonight.
A sense of place, Homefront, The way I operate | Comments (20)I will not die an unlived live
I read through your comments and what resonates most is this: wait to have a second child until nothing else seems right. There are so many different ways to look at the same picture, tilting and turning the image until it fits what we imagine for ourselves.
It’s the imagining that matters. The taking of steps. The risk in doing so. We can never really know where our life will take us. The outcome is more illusive than four leaf clovers tucked among the grass. We cannot be sure we’ll be at the right spot to pluck them up and pocket them—cannot for that matter be sure that we won’t gather an armful of lilies instead. It’s the attempt that matters.The effort that goes into charting the course and then leaping into bright blue space.
Right now this feels right: my small family of the three of us, tucked away here on a hilltop at the end of a long valley. We’re just getting the hang of us. Here. Last year was like a bruise, with so much energy scattered helter-skelter that we’re still just hoping to make it through the winter, gathered around our wood stove, drinking coffee over breakfast.
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of failing or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
Dawna Markova
NaBloPoMo, Homefront, Thoughts & observations | Comments (8)Anticipation angst
This morning called for errands in town. Warm cinnamon buns from the last farmer’s market of the season, and people watching in the rain. Returning home for a much needed two hour nap among soft white flannel sheets (with the cat at my feet) and then an afternoon cleaning in that wholesome, down to the nooks and crannies kind of way that is utterly satisfying.
Tomorrow we’re having a shindig with several dozen people. All good friends and neighbors. Cider, pumpkin carving, a rip-roaring bonfire. And though I can’t wait to have everyone in one spot, I’m way out of my comfort zone.
Throwing parties isn’t something I’m good at yet. I’d like to be. I’d like to be better at social things in general—and it was a resolution of mine this year to push myself in this direction. Being the Aquarius that I am, I’d prefer to be holed up somewhere creating, or with a few friends huddled over steaming lattes in a bohemian cafe. I don’t do new social situations with ease—or, more honestly, I don’t do anticipating them well. Once I’m actually in the midst of it all, I’m generally fine. I fly by the seat of my pants and hope everyone’s having a good time. But the residue of the ahead-of-time angst makes me nervy for the first twenty minutes or so of any new circumstance.
I look back on my quiet, almost cloistered home life as a child, and find my anxiety coiled there. We rarely had guests. My parents never “entertained.” Hence I really only have the random collection of fall-back experiences from my late teens and early twenties, and mostly those sucked. Red plastic cups of cheep beer, etc. But I’ve always craved more. I love people, and I love good food, and I love these in combination. Like a chapter out of an Isabelle Illende novel, I want my house to be full of the vivacious, bubbly, cacophony of voices and laughter. I want this to be the memory Bean has. Friends, always welcome. Dinner parties. Gatherings. Ruckus chatter under starlight, as people gather around a fire.
Doing, Homefront, The way I operate | Comments (11)Spontaneous delight
Spent some quality family time the past few days. Downtown, eating nutella & coconut crepes on a park bench, people watching yesterday evening. The day before we were there running errands, and ended by ordering iced chocolates from the local chocolatier shop, and then stopping to watch a motley group of b-boys (break dancers) put on a show. Totally awesome. Bean loved every minute.
Today we passed more than an hour of time in a local greenhouse/garden center that has a lovely little cafe with tables among the greenhouse plants. Nothing like eating a fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato sandwiches under hanging baskets of bromeliads by a quoi pond. Made a mental note to self: go here in the middle of winter, often!
I love days like this where we’re all together, getting things done, and then we tangent off into something unexpected. Little spontaneous bursts of delight. Most of the morning was spent at the tile store—we’re building a hearth for our new woodstove, to be arriving in a few weeks. It will be fire-engine red, and toasty. Cannot wait.
What have you all been up to? Do you have any favorite little places to go that bring you delight?
Doing, Homefront | Comments (8)Tuesday Notebook
Kneel down, hold the ground in your hands
or reach up and hold meteors in your glance
as they plummet through the dark night.
Be thankful.
***
This morning the air felt scrubbed clean after last night’s rain. I went bleary eyed to my studio, pulling on one of DH’s t-shirt sand a pair of old sweatpants, with the intention of doing some art. I’ve been so bombarded with words lately that they’re starting to feel smaller than usual. More one dimensional. I sit down to write and always feel like the words I get on the page are somewhere at the surface of what I want to say, but no where near the heart. So I’ve decided to do some art every day this week. Little pieces. Messy, real. Maybe getting at some of the depth of emotion I’ve been feeling.
Simply: I spent the weekend house hunting with my inlaws and the experienced left me awed, drained, curious. People live their lives in so many different ways, and their homes carry the expression of their lives so deeply. The timbers gradually soak up the emotion of day to day interactions, the windows, the corner tables, the hues on the walls all start telling a version of the life story of the people who dwell there.
But mostly, I left grateful that we’ve found this place up on our hill. I stand at the window of my studio looking out and my heart fills. The ember red of the little barn/chicken coop we just renovated; the dusty ocher of the blowing meadow grasses; the first hint of red at the tips of the maples; the sweeping view. I feel at home here in a way I never have felt anywhere before, and it is a hungry feeling of wanting to sink in. Be more present here. Take more walks. Notice.
Two nights ago we sat in lawn chairs on the driveway looking up at the bowl of stars, partly obscured with stars. Meteors with glimmering tails streaked across the dark. It’s a place I could be for a while, I think. Among the maples and the beeches and the goldenrod that has grown chest high in the lower meadow, where the coyotes and the owls nightly call.
Do you have a place that makes you feel at home like this? A park, a city street, a vast swath of land that’s yours? Or are you thirsty with longing like I was for years before here?
And also, who wants to do some art with me every day this week?
A sense of place, Homefront, My Notebook | Comments (9)The start of August
Peaches with juice spilling on the soapstone when we cut them; blueberries fat and sweet; cinnamon swirl toast from the farmer’s market, hot with butter. Summer mornings make me happy. We sit around sipping coffee, flipping through various papers, making each other laugh. It’s been an entire week of sunshine. This means: I’m finally starting to look tan; the chicken coop has been painted red; the grass is starting to look dry.
With the first of August I slipped back into accomplishing mode: tearing through lists of things that have been lingering all summer and forcing myself to return to the page to edit work that has been lingering, troublesome as a hangnail since June. I also snagged a fun writing job I’ll be telling you more about very soon; and am crossing my fingers that another piece of mine will be showing up in Mothering in a month.
More good news? My inlaws sold their house—and will be moving up to take care of Bean in a few months. Whenever they’re around, I always notice Bean’s language skills skyrocket: Nonna never stops talking to him, and he’s smitten with the both of them.
To celebrate, we’re going camping with Bean on Saturday! His first real trip. We’re packing life vests and sunscreen, marshmallows and hotdogs. In the mail, a glorious four-person tent arrived and when we set it up on the lawn, Bean was ecstatic. Of course I will take nine-million pictures and foist them on you.
The crickets have started their tremolo, indicating that summer really is winding down. August is the hottest month here, but already the first yellow leaves have appeared, and monarchs are gathering on the milkweed, roadside. Next week I’ll head back to my classroom, painting bookcases, sorting papers. I had my first classroom dream last night. I always have them in August before I meet my new class.
What’s in store for you this August?
Doing, A sense of place, Homefront | Comments (10)Weekend mosaic
A trip to the farmer’s market yesterday; fresh baby artichokes, the sweetest cherry tomatoes, currants, and fresh-baked bread. Wandering amidst stalls of blue hand thrown bowls, golden bouquets of sunflowers, savory samosas, and throngs of kids and dogs. Then sore muscles and satisfaction: finishing the hen house and putting in ten-foot posts for the garden fence. Hours in the sun, mud stained.
This is how he spells his love: wresting cedar posts into position, mixing cement, and framing out the door for the coop, using the funky top-half of a Dutch door that I’ve had my heart set on. These are not his projects, but he makes the so, for me. And I can’t help grinning watching him move, biceps sweat slicked, scratching our initials into the cement of the final post.
These are the days that imprint like sun spots on my memory. Iced espresso and buttered cinnamon toast carried out on a white metal tray for an afternoon snack. Bean with mud on his knees, loading gravel into his dump truck. The field windswept and freckled with daisies and black-eyed-susan’s, and the sky above blue with a ragged tatter of clouds. The beginning of things to last: the phantoms of future raspberry bushes, an asparagus patch, bowls of new summer lettuce, and pastel eggs nestled into hay.
How did you spend your weekend?
Mosaics, Homefront | Comments (9)These are the days
We ate dinner outdoors, breaded chicken, fresh snap peas, homemade French fries; and then walked up the road to the neighbor’s pond, the three of us and a red wagon. Sitting out on the slender plank dock, frogs began to call back and forth across the still water. Above us, swallows swooped low for insects.
We kept Bean up late, with a cup of frothed milk and a pillow in his wagon, because a neighbor puts on a grand firework display every year, and tonight was the night! As good, or better than the ones in town. Dozens upon dozens of sparkling, fill-the-whole-sky-with-brilliance, fireworks. Sipping cold beer. Fresh chocolate chip cookies. Plenty of dogs. Bean curled in my lap, his wide grin lit again and again by each new display.
Have I mentioned we have lovely neighbors? We really do. DH and I keep feeling like we walked into a storybook—at the end of our long dirt road. I am beyond grateful that we found this place: this land, these people. Last Friday we went to another neighborhood shindig: a strawberry festival. Everyone brought deserts featuring local strawberries. The counter top was a mosaic of berries and cream and cake. Bean was the only kid in a forest of adults and everyone indulged him: pouring more lemonade, adding extra chocolate dipped strawberries to his plate, and cooing when he flashed them a smile and bated his lovely eyelashes.
He’s at such a cool age right now: he says thank you and please without prompting (mostly,) and can tag along to such gatherings without certain disaster ensuing. Tonight he was a love. Wide-eyed and eager, he totally dug the whole firework thing. And then rode home watching stars and fireflies, and crawled willingly into bed. These are the days I want to remember when I’m eighty.
Homefront, Mommy?! | Comments (13)Growing
They’re both getting so big: the boy, and the chicks!