I’m cheating and doing six positive things in one day instead of three for two days, because last night I stayed up too late reading and I have no idea when I’ll be online again.
I’m in a mad scramble of packing and loading the car and vacuuming my house -- because that is the very last thing I must do before we embark on a journey. I just feel a little less anxious if I know I’m going to come home to vacuum lines, and Matt generally supports this simply because I suspect I am a little annoying in my pre-trip anxiety.
Matt: Okay, kids, let’s load up! Everybody in the car!
Isaac or Suzannah: But what’s Mommy doing?
Matt: Oh, she’s just vacuuming really quick. It’s fine. She’ll be out in a minute.
Every time.
Anyway, for yesterday and today:
1. Staying up too late reading, which comes back to bite me on school days but is delicious in the summer.
1a. Summer reading lists. What’s on yours? (The Mill on the Floss, by the way, is just wonderful. I read Middlemarch in college and loved it, and I think I need to go back and read it as a real adult. What’s a real adult? I have no idea. ANYWAY.)
2. Waking up to thunder. I love thunderstorms. Yesterday’s morning thunder didn’t quite turn into a storm, but I have a wild hope Montana will treat me to one.
3. Hunkering down in a corner of the library to write for awhile, watching the cars drive through the rain outside.
3a. My kids’ beloved babysitter, who allows me these pockets of time in which I run errands alone (would the Shari of ten years ago appreciated this luxury?) or settle in and write somewhere.
4. A brisk morning walk to break in my new hiking boots. Matt and I are planning a long hike by ourselves in Bozeman, and I would love to not get blisters. I always get blisters. Always. I don’t know why. Have I just always had the wrong boots? Do I have particularly delicate little heels? The guy at REI showed me how to lace my boots so my heel isn’t sliding around, which seems to happen to me no matter which boots I wear (so I attribute this to user error), and I also bought these special little inserts that are supposed to help. I have good socks, and tons of Moleskin, and I will be fine. But you know what? Matt and I did this same great hike three years ago, and when we finally made it back to the trailhead my boots were filled with blood but I survived and it was still great so whatever, whatever.
Anyway, the walk was nice.
5. The Sun, which is the best magazine I’ve ever read. I’m going to subscribe to this magazine for the rest of my life. And a copy came in the mail today, just in time to bring along to read on the road.
6. My husband offered -- offered, I didn’t even ask -- a gin and tonic at precisely five o’clock. Just a tiny one. But we weren’t quite ready to leave, and I was starting to do my irritating anxiety thing, and also we had a little hunk of lime that otherwise would have gone straight into the compost bin.
And with that, I’m off. Cheers!
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Nothing good can come from too much reading.
A couple of years ago, we spent a day of our summer vacation at Yellowstone National Park with my parents. We hadn’t been there since Suzannah was a year old, and we thought the kids would enjoy Old Faithful. They did -- we have video footage of Suzannah exclaiming, “That is so cool! Whoa! I’m pretty sure that’s even taller than all the people!” (Isaac, not yet three, turned to us and said, “Water gone? Turned off?”)
Later, while the kids licked at ice cream cones, I wandered through the gift shop. I don’t really feel like a tourist when I go to Yellowstone or Glacier National Park because I spent so much time there growing up, but I still occasionally buy t-shirts, and sometimes I find great books tucked into the corners of these little shops. A few years ago, I bought a collection of poetry by Montana writers and it is still one of my absolute favorite poetry anthologies of all time; last summer, I found a book of poetry by one author featured in that book.
But when we found ourselves in Yellowstone two summers ago, I didn’t buy poetry. I sidled up to my husband, who was innocently tucking into his own ice cream cone, and said, “Will you buy me just one book?” He nodded, distracted, and so I got to take home Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park.
Death in Yellowstone is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: an account of the 300 deaths that have occurred inside Yellowstone National Park. The book is divided into two sections -- Death by Nature and Death by Man. I am not particularly concerned about Death by Man; I am unlikely to travel by wagon or stagecoach, and I’m just as likely to be killed by a drunk driver or murderer anywhere else.
I am smart enough not to try to pet the bison and grizzly bears.
I don’t eat plants while I’m hiking, even though I have learned (supposedly) once or twice which ones are “safe” and which ones are the kind that will twist up your insides in ten seconds before you drop dead right there on the trail. Look, I saw Into the Wild; I’ll just stick to my own snacks.
Death by lightning doesn’t worry me because while I worry a lot (just you wait) I can’t do much about a thunderstorm. I’ll enjoy it, actually, but I probably won’t be standing on top of a mountain while I do so.
I’m a strong swimmer. I always swim sober, and mostly in lakes (rather than rivers), so the little chapter on Death by Drowning didn’t keep me awake at night.
Death by falling actually worries me a lot, and it kind of makes me no fun to hike with sometimes, especially when we have the kids with us. There’s a really lovely hike we enjoy here in Washington -- I’m not going to tell you where it is because if you know it you’re definitely going to make fun of me -- and I can barely even get through it sometimes because it involves crossing a bridge (a fairly wide, wooden bridge with a substantial railing) and I am utterly convinced that one of our curious children will somehow scale the railing before we can grab them and fall into the water below. (It’s not that far below. If it were, I wouldn’t be walking over it, believe me.) Matt was not appropriately empathetic that first time, and there may have been some tension between us for the rest of the hike. It’s fine, though. Bygones.
My point is that there are really high places from which to fall in Yellowstone and I did not enjoy reading about them. I shared this with my husband, along with the rather strong opinion that we should avoid any place that boasts a spectacular view; nevermind the fact that I love a lot of those places. (I can’t believe I am confessing this publicly, but years ago when we went to Snoqualmie Falls I couldn’t bring myself to walk up the steps to the viewing area. I got close, but I seriously almost threw up when Matt thought he was going to carry our little daughter to see the waterfall. We can get a perfectly good view of the falls on the opening credits of Twin Peaks.)
The worst chapter, though, was the very first one: “Hold Fast to your Children: Deaths in Hot Water.” Just the title is bad news for a mother, especially one who spends so much time in Crazyland. Later that night, after we’d tucked our exhausted children into bed, I curled up in my parents’ living room with my new book. It wasn’t long before I sat up, horrified.
“Matt, do you know what happens to your eyeballs if you fall into one of those hot springs and get boiled alive? They turn white. Not just the part that’s already white. The whole thing.”
“Good grief, Shari,” my mother said. “Don’t you have anything nicer to read? What were you reading before you started reading this book?”
I showed her my copy of Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus.
“For Pete’s sake,” my mother said.
“I’m glad I got you that book after we walked around the hot springs,” Matt said.
“Well, we’re not going back until the kids are teenagers, obviously.” My what-if’s (what if one of my children broke away from me and stumbled and fell in? What if one of us turned our back long enough for one of them to try to touch the pretty water?) were quieted only by the knowledge that Isaac was solidly contained in either the stroller or the backpack the entire time, and Suzannah had a firm hold of someone’s hand all the time and was also well-behaved enough to listen when we told her seriously that it was important to stay with Mom and Dad and Grandpa and Grandma and not touch the water. Also, we were safely home again by the time I had to visualize someone boiling alive in the hot springs.
I’m not sure what prompted me to write all this tonight, except that soon we’ll be in Glacier for a few days during our annual Montana trip and I suppose I was feeling nostalgic. There are no hot springs in Glacier, although I have no doubt I’ll find something to be anxious about. Still, as far as I know, no one has written a book called Death in Glacier, and Matt probably wouldn’t let me have it anyway. (When Suzannah was about two, we spent a few days in the park with Matt’s family. At night, after everyone else had turned in, I stayed up late reading a book about grizzly bear attacks. I know I said that’s not a particular fear of mine -- it’s still not -- but the book gave me such chills that I half-expected a grizzly to come charging through the cozy living room of the house we were renting near Whitefish.) I don’t really know what to say about this. The other day Becca said to me, "I mean, horrifying documentaries about rabies and/or gangs and/or religious cults are how you relax.”
Okay, but seriously, I will try to be reasonable on this trip.
Relatedly, I’ve been mostly off Facebook -- all the grandparents have been here over the past week and we took a quick trip to the ocean -- and I plan to stay mostly off until we’re back in Washington. One of the things I appreciate about vacation is the permission I give myself to truly unplug and be present where I’m at. I’ll check my e-mail a few times, and I still might post here, because I love to tell everyone what I think all the time. Also, my friend Mandy recently tagged me in a challenge to post three positive things for seven days. This is a Facebook thing, but maybe I can do that here, and it’s a nice way to check in and capture the moments I want to remember from our trip. I won’t promise seven consecutive days -- I don’t plan to try to punch in a blog entry on my stupid smartphone somewhere in the mountains -- but I’ll shoot for seven days before I post on Facebook again.
Here are my three for today:
1. The light summer drizzle that greeted me when I stepped outside this morning. I love our sunny Seattle summers, but these moments of softness that make everything smell new again are a gift. The droplets shone on our pretty purple flowers in the front yard.
2. The pound of fresh roasted coffee from Valhalla, which I bought on a coffee outing with Suzannah and Kyanne. Have you ever physically just hugged a package of coffee because it smelled so good?
3. The freshest, lightest, loveliest dinner -- butter lettuce, roasted beets, cucumbers, kohlrabi, and roasted broccoli. Every single week I am grateful for such easy access to gorgeous local produce here. I love this season of salads, and I’m so looking forward to pluots and peaches in a couple of weeks.
I’m signing off to finish The Mill on the Floss, because while I do love a nice meaty Victorian novel in the summer, I’m not sure I want to pack along my hefty hardcover. I’m planning to bring a few paperbacks instead -- and who knows what kinds of books I’ll pick up along the road this year.
Later, while the kids licked at ice cream cones, I wandered through the gift shop. I don’t really feel like a tourist when I go to Yellowstone or Glacier National Park because I spent so much time there growing up, but I still occasionally buy t-shirts, and sometimes I find great books tucked into the corners of these little shops. A few years ago, I bought a collection of poetry by Montana writers and it is still one of my absolute favorite poetry anthologies of all time; last summer, I found a book of poetry by one author featured in that book.
But when we found ourselves in Yellowstone two summers ago, I didn’t buy poetry. I sidled up to my husband, who was innocently tucking into his own ice cream cone, and said, “Will you buy me just one book?” He nodded, distracted, and so I got to take home Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park.
Death in Yellowstone is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: an account of the 300 deaths that have occurred inside Yellowstone National Park. The book is divided into two sections -- Death by Nature and Death by Man. I am not particularly concerned about Death by Man; I am unlikely to travel by wagon or stagecoach, and I’m just as likely to be killed by a drunk driver or murderer anywhere else.
I am smart enough not to try to pet the bison and grizzly bears.
I don’t eat plants while I’m hiking, even though I have learned (supposedly) once or twice which ones are “safe” and which ones are the kind that will twist up your insides in ten seconds before you drop dead right there on the trail. Look, I saw Into the Wild; I’ll just stick to my own snacks.
Death by lightning doesn’t worry me because while I worry a lot (just you wait) I can’t do much about a thunderstorm. I’ll enjoy it, actually, but I probably won’t be standing on top of a mountain while I do so.
I’m a strong swimmer. I always swim sober, and mostly in lakes (rather than rivers), so the little chapter on Death by Drowning didn’t keep me awake at night.
Death by falling actually worries me a lot, and it kind of makes me no fun to hike with sometimes, especially when we have the kids with us. There’s a really lovely hike we enjoy here in Washington -- I’m not going to tell you where it is because if you know it you’re definitely going to make fun of me -- and I can barely even get through it sometimes because it involves crossing a bridge (a fairly wide, wooden bridge with a substantial railing) and I am utterly convinced that one of our curious children will somehow scale the railing before we can grab them and fall into the water below. (It’s not that far below. If it were, I wouldn’t be walking over it, believe me.) Matt was not appropriately empathetic that first time, and there may have been some tension between us for the rest of the hike. It’s fine, though. Bygones.
My point is that there are really high places from which to fall in Yellowstone and I did not enjoy reading about them. I shared this with my husband, along with the rather strong opinion that we should avoid any place that boasts a spectacular view; nevermind the fact that I love a lot of those places. (I can’t believe I am confessing this publicly, but years ago when we went to Snoqualmie Falls I couldn’t bring myself to walk up the steps to the viewing area. I got close, but I seriously almost threw up when Matt thought he was going to carry our little daughter to see the waterfall. We can get a perfectly good view of the falls on the opening credits of Twin Peaks.)
The worst chapter, though, was the very first one: “Hold Fast to your Children: Deaths in Hot Water.” Just the title is bad news for a mother, especially one who spends so much time in Crazyland. Later that night, after we’d tucked our exhausted children into bed, I curled up in my parents’ living room with my new book. It wasn’t long before I sat up, horrified.
“Matt, do you know what happens to your eyeballs if you fall into one of those hot springs and get boiled alive? They turn white. Not just the part that’s already white. The whole thing.”
“Good grief, Shari,” my mother said. “Don’t you have anything nicer to read? What were you reading before you started reading this book?”
I showed her my copy of Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus.
“For Pete’s sake,” my mother said.
“I’m glad I got you that book after we walked around the hot springs,” Matt said.
“Well, we’re not going back until the kids are teenagers, obviously.” My what-if’s (what if one of my children broke away from me and stumbled and fell in? What if one of us turned our back long enough for one of them to try to touch the pretty water?) were quieted only by the knowledge that Isaac was solidly contained in either the stroller or the backpack the entire time, and Suzannah had a firm hold of someone’s hand all the time and was also well-behaved enough to listen when we told her seriously that it was important to stay with Mom and Dad and Grandpa and Grandma and not touch the water. Also, we were safely home again by the time I had to visualize someone boiling alive in the hot springs.
I’m not sure what prompted me to write all this tonight, except that soon we’ll be in Glacier for a few days during our annual Montana trip and I suppose I was feeling nostalgic. There are no hot springs in Glacier, although I have no doubt I’ll find something to be anxious about. Still, as far as I know, no one has written a book called Death in Glacier, and Matt probably wouldn’t let me have it anyway. (When Suzannah was about two, we spent a few days in the park with Matt’s family. At night, after everyone else had turned in, I stayed up late reading a book about grizzly bear attacks. I know I said that’s not a particular fear of mine -- it’s still not -- but the book gave me such chills that I half-expected a grizzly to come charging through the cozy living room of the house we were renting near Whitefish.) I don’t really know what to say about this. The other day Becca said to me, "I mean, horrifying documentaries about rabies and/or gangs and/or religious cults are how you relax.”
Okay, but seriously, I will try to be reasonable on this trip.
Relatedly, I’ve been mostly off Facebook -- all the grandparents have been here over the past week and we took a quick trip to the ocean -- and I plan to stay mostly off until we’re back in Washington. One of the things I appreciate about vacation is the permission I give myself to truly unplug and be present where I’m at. I’ll check my e-mail a few times, and I still might post here, because I love to tell everyone what I think all the time. Also, my friend Mandy recently tagged me in a challenge to post three positive things for seven days. This is a Facebook thing, but maybe I can do that here, and it’s a nice way to check in and capture the moments I want to remember from our trip. I won’t promise seven consecutive days -- I don’t plan to try to punch in a blog entry on my stupid smartphone somewhere in the mountains -- but I’ll shoot for seven days before I post on Facebook again.
Here are my three for today:
1. The light summer drizzle that greeted me when I stepped outside this morning. I love our sunny Seattle summers, but these moments of softness that make everything smell new again are a gift. The droplets shone on our pretty purple flowers in the front yard.
2. The pound of fresh roasted coffee from Valhalla, which I bought on a coffee outing with Suzannah and Kyanne. Have you ever physically just hugged a package of coffee because it smelled so good?
3. The freshest, lightest, loveliest dinner -- butter lettuce, roasted beets, cucumbers, kohlrabi, and roasted broccoli. Every single week I am grateful for such easy access to gorgeous local produce here. I love this season of salads, and I’m so looking forward to pluots and peaches in a couple of weeks.
I’m signing off to finish The Mill on the Floss, because while I do love a nice meaty Victorian novel in the summer, I’m not sure I want to pack along my hefty hardcover. I’m planning to bring a few paperbacks instead -- and who knows what kinds of books I’ll pick up along the road this year.
Friday, July 11, 2014
What a world
I took the kids to the splash park this afternoon. We’re under some kind of heat advisory for the next few days as temperatures soar into the nineties. This is hot for Seattle, and our house doesn’t have air conditioning. We have a large tree that shades the front of our house, a few fans, and a backyard with a hose and a sprinkler, but today they wanted a little more water than our little sprinkler could provide.
Honestly, I would have preferred the backyard. I wanted to sit on our patio under the shade of our umbrella, sip iced tea, maybe read a little. I could have easy access to the bathroom, the kitchen. On the other hand, I understood. So I slathered sunscreen all over the kids, slathered sunscreen all over myself, tossed our towels and my latest copy of The Sun into our beach bag, and we headed out into the sunshine.
The splash park was surprisingly uncrowded for a hot afternoon. We went a couple of times last week, and it was packed full of joyfully screaming children. Today, instead of staking out my tiny little corner between the water and the playground, I could spread out a bit, relax, open my magazine. I could glance up and spot my children right away.
While the kids ran between the water and the playground, I read an essay called “Three" by Chris Dombrowski, about a family adjusting to a surprise third child. It is a sweet, well written story (everything printed in The Sun is well written) and I was enjoying it, but then the author recalls an incident in which their third child, as a toddler, choked on a piece of apple. That moment when tension became panic as both parents tried to dislodge it from her throat. The stiffening body, the relief of her crying, their other children’s fear triggered by their own, and the mother’s subsequent breakdown once the danger has passed. All the huge what-ifs.
I get all that. Quite frankly, I know I spend an unhealthy amount of time with my head in the huge what-ifs and it makes me sort of mentally ill. But that’s not the part that really got me. The author describes a moment shortly afterwards, after everyone had calmed down and the parents had reassured the two older children than everything was fine. He notices that his wife and son are missing, and he finds them upstairs, just sitting on the floor together. His wife’s eyes are still full of tears, and she tells her husband that their son has just been sitting there with her on the floor with his arm around her, not saying a word, for twenty minutes.
What a world, Dombrowski writes. What a woman. What a boy, who, sooner than I can imagine, will be a man.
I read that line and remembered holding my infant son in the dark of his room, rocking him to sleep before I laid him down. He was big enough that he didn’t sleep in the bed with us anymore, but still so little, still with a bald fuzzy head and footie pajamas. He used to rest his cheek against my shoulder, sigh, and go heavy while I rocked and rocked. And he was heavy, such a solid little guy, nearly twenty pounds by six months, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to put him down right away. I remember feeling an awareness as solid as my son that I was somehow holding all of him, all of his ages, that someday, God willing, I will rest my cheek against his chest when I hug him.
I didn’t even read the next line before I was crying, right there in the splash park. No one noticed, thanks to my huge sunglasses and the bright sunshine, but I was. What a world. What a boy.
I managed to finish the story. Dombrowski writes about small moments: Making a snowman with a child who decides to sneak a few furtive bites of the carrot nose, for instance. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner without having time to shovel the front walk before guests arrive. Anxieties, little and big. Uncertainties. Revelations. He throws in a nice river metaphor; he’s from Montana, after all. It was all so ordinary, really. But these small stories are exactly the stories I depend upon and the kind of stories I try tell in my own fumbling way.
He ends with an image of his wife counting their three children’s “breathing bodies,” a ritual I know so well. It’s the last thing I do every single night, even though my children are eight and four, far from babyhood. (But not far. Not so very far at all.) I can’t go to sleep until I have tip-toed into their rooms, kissed their foreheads, felt the warm breath from their slightly open mouths and watched the gentle rise and fall of their chests. I brush Suzannah’s tangled hair out of her face. I trace Isaac’s cheek.
At the splash park, I tucked my magazine back into the beach bag just as my little boy ran at me, dripping wet.
“Mommy!” he shrieked. “Do you want to go through the circle thing with me now?”
I stood up, pulled my cover-up over my head, and dropped it on top of our pile of towels. I wanted to freeze that exact moment -- my son’s shining face, his wet hair plastered to his forehead, Suzannah running towards the zip line, and Mount Rainier rising in the background, beyond the rooftops, behind the bursting green trees.
“You know I do, Baby,” I said, and he took my hand. “I’m ready."
What a world. What a boy, what a girl. What they will become, sooner than I can imagine.
Honestly, I would have preferred the backyard. I wanted to sit on our patio under the shade of our umbrella, sip iced tea, maybe read a little. I could have easy access to the bathroom, the kitchen. On the other hand, I understood. So I slathered sunscreen all over the kids, slathered sunscreen all over myself, tossed our towels and my latest copy of The Sun into our beach bag, and we headed out into the sunshine.
The splash park was surprisingly uncrowded for a hot afternoon. We went a couple of times last week, and it was packed full of joyfully screaming children. Today, instead of staking out my tiny little corner between the water and the playground, I could spread out a bit, relax, open my magazine. I could glance up and spot my children right away.
While the kids ran between the water and the playground, I read an essay called “Three" by Chris Dombrowski, about a family adjusting to a surprise third child. It is a sweet, well written story (everything printed in The Sun is well written) and I was enjoying it, but then the author recalls an incident in which their third child, as a toddler, choked on a piece of apple. That moment when tension became panic as both parents tried to dislodge it from her throat. The stiffening body, the relief of her crying, their other children’s fear triggered by their own, and the mother’s subsequent breakdown once the danger has passed. All the huge what-ifs.
I get all that. Quite frankly, I know I spend an unhealthy amount of time with my head in the huge what-ifs and it makes me sort of mentally ill. But that’s not the part that really got me. The author describes a moment shortly afterwards, after everyone had calmed down and the parents had reassured the two older children than everything was fine. He notices that his wife and son are missing, and he finds them upstairs, just sitting on the floor together. His wife’s eyes are still full of tears, and she tells her husband that their son has just been sitting there with her on the floor with his arm around her, not saying a word, for twenty minutes.
What a world, Dombrowski writes. What a woman. What a boy, who, sooner than I can imagine, will be a man.
I read that line and remembered holding my infant son in the dark of his room, rocking him to sleep before I laid him down. He was big enough that he didn’t sleep in the bed with us anymore, but still so little, still with a bald fuzzy head and footie pajamas. He used to rest his cheek against my shoulder, sigh, and go heavy while I rocked and rocked. And he was heavy, such a solid little guy, nearly twenty pounds by six months, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to put him down right away. I remember feeling an awareness as solid as my son that I was somehow holding all of him, all of his ages, that someday, God willing, I will rest my cheek against his chest when I hug him.
I didn’t even read the next line before I was crying, right there in the splash park. No one noticed, thanks to my huge sunglasses and the bright sunshine, but I was. What a world. What a boy.
I managed to finish the story. Dombrowski writes about small moments: Making a snowman with a child who decides to sneak a few furtive bites of the carrot nose, for instance. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner without having time to shovel the front walk before guests arrive. Anxieties, little and big. Uncertainties. Revelations. He throws in a nice river metaphor; he’s from Montana, after all. It was all so ordinary, really. But these small stories are exactly the stories I depend upon and the kind of stories I try tell in my own fumbling way.
He ends with an image of his wife counting their three children’s “breathing bodies,” a ritual I know so well. It’s the last thing I do every single night, even though my children are eight and four, far from babyhood. (But not far. Not so very far at all.) I can’t go to sleep until I have tip-toed into their rooms, kissed their foreheads, felt the warm breath from their slightly open mouths and watched the gentle rise and fall of their chests. I brush Suzannah’s tangled hair out of her face. I trace Isaac’s cheek.
At the splash park, I tucked my magazine back into the beach bag just as my little boy ran at me, dripping wet.
“Mommy!” he shrieked. “Do you want to go through the circle thing with me now?”
I stood up, pulled my cover-up over my head, and dropped it on top of our pile of towels. I wanted to freeze that exact moment -- my son’s shining face, his wet hair plastered to his forehead, Suzannah running towards the zip line, and Mount Rainier rising in the background, beyond the rooftops, behind the bursting green trees.
“You know I do, Baby,” I said, and he took my hand. “I’m ready."
What a world. What a boy, what a girl. What they will become, sooner than I can imagine.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Our backyard, and other summertime musings
It is barely July, and already I feel so far away from the frenetic last weeks of the school year. For the most part, we are not bound by schedules in summer because I think there is great value in surrendering to the vast open promise of each day. If it is sunny, we will be outside, probably in water at some point. If it is not, we will still probably be outside, but if not, I think there is also value in my children learning how to cope with boredom. I don’t turn on the TV at all until I need to chop vegetables before dinner, and so my children are forced either to annoy each other or find something else to do. Suzannah has been reading and reading and reading, and if she’s not in my direct line of sight she is almost always sitting cross-legged on her bed with a book. Isaac might mope around and whine, “But Mommy, I don’t know what to play with,” but then he usually busies himself with a puzzle or his Duplos or one of the play cooking sets. This morning he turned his sister’s Strawberry Shortcake thermos into a “blaster” and informed me that one of his “guys” was stuck inside the spout, which, regrettably, was true. It’s still there, and his sister doesn’t know. I’ll deal with it later.
The largely unstructured time (with the exception of swimming lessons, and Saturday gymnastics) works against me a bit, though, as much as I need it. Without the distraction of the classroom -- the dynamics, the immediacy of teenagers and their needs -- I tend towards anxiety. I hang on to things, chew on them. I diagnose myself with too many things because I read something alarming on the internet, or I find myself stewing over a careless word that I wouldn’t bother so much with in, say, October or March. When something bothers me, it bothers me a lot. Last night I stayed awake far too late (not stewing, but reading), and when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t turn off my brain. Then, just for fun, I decided someone was absolutely trying to break into our house, so I prowled around fiercely in the dark for awhile, checking the locks and making sure my children were still breathing, which is a different anxiety, and at the back of all of that I wondered whether I was truly appreciating my summer the way I should be. Welcome to my crazy.
I do better when I take internet breaks, and it’s sad, but I actually schedule these -- starting on a specific day, with specific restrictions (e-mail is okay, Facebook isn’t, etc). I do better when I’m reading and writing and making sure I exercise each week, when I’m cooking good food and carving out time with my children, both together but also individually. I do better when I sleep, but I’m terrible at this. (I’m working on it. Kind of.) I do better when I can look back on even my unstructured days and recognize that they were lived well. For instance, things I want to remember about the past couple of weeks include: taking my daughter to Tacoma after her last day of second grade, eating lunch together and riding the Link. Buying her a book at the UW bookstore and a cookie dough cupcake afterwards. Reading with her, each of us with our own books, sprawled on a blanket under our huge tree in the front yard. Walking to Starbucks in the afternoons for afternoon treats -- cake pops and vanilla scones for the kids, coffee for me. Making huge salads of fresh local lettuce and roasted baby beets for dinner. Jogging along Puget Sound in the salty morning air. Spending time with my parents before and after their trip to Boston, watching home movies at Aaron and Morgan’s house (and showing my kids what Mommy looked like when she ran along the beach at Ocean Shores in 1988, at the age of nine). Taking the kids to the splash park. Eating dinner with friends on the Tacoma waterfront, sharing sushi with Becca in West Seattle, having coffee with a dear friend who’s moving to another city in a week or so. I want to hold and remember even the simplest things: waking slowly, kissing Matt before he leaves, pouring cereal for the kids and cooking an egg for myself (with greens if I’m ambitious), sitting with my mug of coffee in the living room and stealing a few pages of a book while the kids shriek and giggle and dump their toys on the family room floor.
***
The last couple of days have been hot for the Pacific Northwest, and even though our little house doesn’t have air conditioning, I love the way the heat both slows us down and calls us out into the sunshine. I have not felt greatly motivated to, say, go for early-evening runs after spending the afternoon hours outside at the splash park, sweat trickling down my back before I jump through the water with my son (I’m that mom -- I make sure I’m good and soaked too before we make our tired way back to the car), but I do want to be outside all the time. The playground, the splash park, our own backyard. I’m never so in love with where we live than I am in the summer, when I turn my children loose outside and watch them tear through the sprinkler, turning their slide into a waterslide and shrieking their hellos to the neighbor boys. I know exactly where to put my favorite lawn chair depending on the time of day; I know when the morning shade will slide away up my legs and have me reaching for my sunglasses and iced tea or water. Today while Isaac munched on a cookie during a break from his play, I thought about all the books I’ve read in this backyard: the last few Harry Potter books; The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver; The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich; Faithful Place, by Tana French; At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O’Neill...there are others, of course, because we’ve lived in this house for over ten years now, but I have such specific memories of those novels and the way I sprawled in the backyard with them and let them carry me away on a summer day.
I remember staining our old deck, summer after summer, starting a year or two after we bought the house -- and I don’t miss it, either the deck or the staining. Not one tiny bit. I’m so in love with our simple concrete patio and our simple patio furniture; I just want to hang out back there all the time. I remember Suzannah’s first plastic little wading pool and her first little swimsuit -- a two-piece, because I couldn’t resist showing off her round toddler tummy. (I remember the day she slipped and fell on her face in the water, and how in my hurry to pick her up I dropped my camera in the pool. It never really recovered.) I remember sitting under our cherry tree while she climbed on her first little backyard play set and splashed in that same wading pool a year later, trying to read and take notes one of the books I was planning to teach during the next school year. The title page of that book still bears blue ballpoint scribbles, my daughter’s contribution to annotating the text. The following summer we squeezed into the wading pool together. I was pregnant with her brother, and that summer was the hottest I’d experienced in Washington; my relief came from letting my daughter pour buckets of water over me in the backyard before I led us both inside to try (mostly unsuccessfully) to nap.
Things have changed in the eleven years we’ve lived here, of course. We’ve added two children, a more permanent swing/play set, and a modest garden. We tore out the horrible rotting wooden deck and replaced it with a patio that requires nothing from me. Our immediate neighbors have added three boys of roughly the same ages as my children, and the old dogs plodding around their backyard (blind, deaf, one wearing an argyle sweater) have been replaced by four shrill and energetic miniature dachshunds. Our pug puppy has become the old dog, and now she is the one who hobbles around the backyard, fumbling her way back to the door because she can’t see it or hear us calling her.
But really, when I sit in our backyard, I am sitting outside time. There is only the sunshine, and the trees. The sound of the birds, a distant lawnmower. The scent of charcoals, grilling hamburgers, cut grass, sunscreen. The clink of the ice cubes in my glass of water or tea. Sometimes it startles me to remember my children as babies and toddlers, their unsteady legs wobbling across this grass, this yard. Here. Now they run, they run through the backyard, they open the gate and run around to the front where Matt is mowing, they open the sliding doors to run inside for a drink or a bathroom break or a toy. I deliver snacks and towels, I rub sunscreen into their flushed cheeks and spread it across their backs and legs, but mostly I stay on the sidelines. I can sip my ice water, sit for awhile, and read a few pages of my book. And while I’m grateful for these little moments of relative freedom, I thank God they are still young enough to call out, ”Watch me, Mommy!”
If I never have more than I have right now, it will be enough.
The largely unstructured time (with the exception of swimming lessons, and Saturday gymnastics) works against me a bit, though, as much as I need it. Without the distraction of the classroom -- the dynamics, the immediacy of teenagers and their needs -- I tend towards anxiety. I hang on to things, chew on them. I diagnose myself with too many things because I read something alarming on the internet, or I find myself stewing over a careless word that I wouldn’t bother so much with in, say, October or March. When something bothers me, it bothers me a lot. Last night I stayed awake far too late (not stewing, but reading), and when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t turn off my brain. Then, just for fun, I decided someone was absolutely trying to break into our house, so I prowled around fiercely in the dark for awhile, checking the locks and making sure my children were still breathing, which is a different anxiety, and at the back of all of that I wondered whether I was truly appreciating my summer the way I should be. Welcome to my crazy.
I do better when I take internet breaks, and it’s sad, but I actually schedule these -- starting on a specific day, with specific restrictions (e-mail is okay, Facebook isn’t, etc). I do better when I’m reading and writing and making sure I exercise each week, when I’m cooking good food and carving out time with my children, both together but also individually. I do better when I sleep, but I’m terrible at this. (I’m working on it. Kind of.) I do better when I can look back on even my unstructured days and recognize that they were lived well. For instance, things I want to remember about the past couple of weeks include: taking my daughter to Tacoma after her last day of second grade, eating lunch together and riding the Link. Buying her a book at the UW bookstore and a cookie dough cupcake afterwards. Reading with her, each of us with our own books, sprawled on a blanket under our huge tree in the front yard. Walking to Starbucks in the afternoons for afternoon treats -- cake pops and vanilla scones for the kids, coffee for me. Making huge salads of fresh local lettuce and roasted baby beets for dinner. Jogging along Puget Sound in the salty morning air. Spending time with my parents before and after their trip to Boston, watching home movies at Aaron and Morgan’s house (and showing my kids what Mommy looked like when she ran along the beach at Ocean Shores in 1988, at the age of nine). Taking the kids to the splash park. Eating dinner with friends on the Tacoma waterfront, sharing sushi with Becca in West Seattle, having coffee with a dear friend who’s moving to another city in a week or so. I want to hold and remember even the simplest things: waking slowly, kissing Matt before he leaves, pouring cereal for the kids and cooking an egg for myself (with greens if I’m ambitious), sitting with my mug of coffee in the living room and stealing a few pages of a book while the kids shriek and giggle and dump their toys on the family room floor.
The last couple of days have been hot for the Pacific Northwest, and even though our little house doesn’t have air conditioning, I love the way the heat both slows us down and calls us out into the sunshine. I have not felt greatly motivated to, say, go for early-evening runs after spending the afternoon hours outside at the splash park, sweat trickling down my back before I jump through the water with my son (I’m that mom -- I make sure I’m good and soaked too before we make our tired way back to the car), but I do want to be outside all the time. The playground, the splash park, our own backyard. I’m never so in love with where we live than I am in the summer, when I turn my children loose outside and watch them tear through the sprinkler, turning their slide into a waterslide and shrieking their hellos to the neighbor boys. I know exactly where to put my favorite lawn chair depending on the time of day; I know when the morning shade will slide away up my legs and have me reaching for my sunglasses and iced tea or water. Today while Isaac munched on a cookie during a break from his play, I thought about all the books I’ve read in this backyard: the last few Harry Potter books; The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver; The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich; Faithful Place, by Tana French; At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O’Neill...there are others, of course, because we’ve lived in this house for over ten years now, but I have such specific memories of those novels and the way I sprawled in the backyard with them and let them carry me away on a summer day.
I remember staining our old deck, summer after summer, starting a year or two after we bought the house -- and I don’t miss it, either the deck or the staining. Not one tiny bit. I’m so in love with our simple concrete patio and our simple patio furniture; I just want to hang out back there all the time. I remember Suzannah’s first plastic little wading pool and her first little swimsuit -- a two-piece, because I couldn’t resist showing off her round toddler tummy. (I remember the day she slipped and fell on her face in the water, and how in my hurry to pick her up I dropped my camera in the pool. It never really recovered.) I remember sitting under our cherry tree while she climbed on her first little backyard play set and splashed in that same wading pool a year later, trying to read and take notes one of the books I was planning to teach during the next school year. The title page of that book still bears blue ballpoint scribbles, my daughter’s contribution to annotating the text. The following summer we squeezed into the wading pool together. I was pregnant with her brother, and that summer was the hottest I’d experienced in Washington; my relief came from letting my daughter pour buckets of water over me in the backyard before I led us both inside to try (mostly unsuccessfully) to nap.
Things have changed in the eleven years we’ve lived here, of course. We’ve added two children, a more permanent swing/play set, and a modest garden. We tore out the horrible rotting wooden deck and replaced it with a patio that requires nothing from me. Our immediate neighbors have added three boys of roughly the same ages as my children, and the old dogs plodding around their backyard (blind, deaf, one wearing an argyle sweater) have been replaced by four shrill and energetic miniature dachshunds. Our pug puppy has become the old dog, and now she is the one who hobbles around the backyard, fumbling her way back to the door because she can’t see it or hear us calling her.
But really, when I sit in our backyard, I am sitting outside time. There is only the sunshine, and the trees. The sound of the birds, a distant lawnmower. The scent of charcoals, grilling hamburgers, cut grass, sunscreen. The clink of the ice cubes in my glass of water or tea. Sometimes it startles me to remember my children as babies and toddlers, their unsteady legs wobbling across this grass, this yard. Here. Now they run, they run through the backyard, they open the gate and run around to the front where Matt is mowing, they open the sliding doors to run inside for a drink or a bathroom break or a toy. I deliver snacks and towels, I rub sunscreen into their flushed cheeks and spread it across their backs and legs, but mostly I stay on the sidelines. I can sip my ice water, sit for awhile, and read a few pages of my book. And while I’m grateful for these little moments of relative freedom, I thank God they are still young enough to call out, ”Watch me, Mommy!”
If I never have more than I have right now, it will be enough.
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