because men feel entitled to usurp vocabulary describing women's role in creation while in the business of gross and violent machinery

TO: Colonel George Bond , Fort Greely, Alaska

Dear Col. Bond:

I'd like you to know I took exception to the fact that you called the yellow cable that provides data to the EKVs (“Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicles” which intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles) - their “umbilical cord.”

I imagine, Sir, that at one time, many years ago, your mother looked down at you, just recently freed from the connecting element you shared, that fed you and grew you month after month, and she saw in you potential in a degree she knew not until that moment.

Even the most cynical among us, when set face to face with the realization of our hopes and the reenactment of our fears, i.e. our child, the being that we may well become the closest to in the world, cannot help but be driven by a ferocity of love that has every chance of outshining your missiles by bounds so large as to remain unrelatable, and that would most certainly have something sharply unequivocal to say about your careless choice of language.

another debate

I recently wrote a letter to the editors of Brain, Child magazine. I was going to wait to see if they print it before posting something about it here, but it's only a quarterly and I'm impatient and they might not print it and if they do they might edit it (ee-gads!). So, as we are about to move into the comedy and tragedy of another debate night, here's what I said:


25 September 2008

Dear Eds:

As I write this, the two presidential candidates are preparing to debate each other in Oxford, Mississippi. While there is part of me eager for this political face-off, I find that the debates in Brain, Child are consistently my least favorite part of the magazine.

A yes/no debate, this black or white, head-to-head sparring, strikes me as - if Scott Lozier (who made some excellent points in “Should Vegetarian Parents Raise Vegetarian Kids?”) and the other dads will forgive me – an extremely male concept.

I appreciate the idea of breaking up the essays with a different kind of presentation, but I feel strongly that this is not it. We could contend that despite the duality constructed for the sake of argument, as they say, we still know that there are more than two sides to any issue and myriad experiences, emotions, and thoughts that go into wherever we land toward our goal of raising children to be healthy, loving adults. However, by displaying important issues in this all or nothing format it can be tricky to keep in mind. Those other multiple perspectives we “know” exist or the pieces of truth to be found on a side we generally disagree with, have a tendency to roll under the dresser forgotten with the cat toys and the pacifier (should babies be given pacifiers?? yes or no??).

I often feel the arguments in the debate are written poorly on both sides, unlike the caliber of writing in the rest of the magazine. The “opponents,” in fact, are sometimes in agreement in more places than not, though it's easy to miss such junctures in philosophy since the nature of a debate sets us apart from the very beginning, lands us rigid, determined to prove our point. There we are, fingers in our ears, glued to this or that side...red state or blue state.

It occurs to me that I do not necessarily wish our power as parents to reflect the higher offices and workings of our country – particularly in its currently crippled state of economic and social standing. I would much rather be part of a thoughtful grass roots rumble with its eye on a future that embraces cooperation, innovation and, most of all, conversation.

still things to smile about

I just about want to pee my pants. Order yours today!

campsite 61 – check out day

Soon you'll be home again.

All for the best, you can hardly stand it here – the stillness, the trees as quiet witness, holding your story with the rest. You can hardly stand the shivering river, the canopies of green, the fire firing bright sparks into the dawn. You can't possibly take another day of your son's joy – balancing on logs, snuggled into your neck calling “Good morning!” in the dewy chill, his mismatched layers, his blonde waves a step away from dreadlocks.

Already you can imagine yourself back at home – the hammock tied to the one tree in your yard, its woven colors flaccid against the browning lawn, your windows shut tight in the heat of the afternoon to close out the incessant car alarms. Ah. Home.

For what have I come to paradise? To put off again standing at the sink doing dishes? Release me back to my routine, where the creatures of the night are me, stumbling down the dark hall, sodden in the recurring dream of escape.

To the woman who stopped me to ask how safe the neighborhood was as I was walking with the stroller to go pick up Isaac from preschool:

Thinking of buying a home here are you? Oh! Getting ready to start a family. Congratulations. Safe here in the daytime? Well, yes. Um, pardon me for saying so, but - duh. It's an odd question, lady, except, I guess I understand. I know our little section of town doesn't have the hottest reputation. It's haunted by something of a checkered past, founded as it was by the servicemen occupying the now-defunct military base just up the hill from where we are chatting now.

Back in the day, the main drag was lined with prostitutes. Funny, things seemed to clean up when the soldiers left. Well, a few are still here. Those are the old guys that wave to me from their porches, or don't. Some people get surly with age. Some people are just raised suspicious. I try to say hello to people when I walk. How's your Spanish? Doesn't matter. Just say good morning. Most people brighten right up and smile back. It's like magic. Some people don't. You'll have that. Anyway, no one is going to throw needles out their car windows at you and your baby. Probably. People work hard here. Did you see the crowd at the busstop? Dangerous? I doubt it. They're going to work, see. Some people still do that, even here in the land of the chokingly wealthy, land of the golf course.

I have a little secret to share with you though. When you have a newborn, you are crazy. Certifiable. Don't matter where you are it'll feel precarious and risky. When Isaac was born we lived in the most violently idyllic town you can imagine and I saw danger everywhere. Well, some was real – like the blind old bastards creeping into the crosswalks in their Mercedes, but nevermind. I couldn't get my precious bundle out of the bank fast enough – that bastion of filth and disease. I would cross the street to avoid car repair joints.

Let me give you a virtual tour of our 'hood. Nice view, eh? It really is if you look beyond the box stores. There's the bay. Stunning. They could've left us a few more trees though, don't you think?

Let's start with food, naturally. Did you try the wholesale Mexican bakery down the block? Right there. If they're out of conchinitos, try San Pablo's just a little further, they usually have them. And if you're feeling fancy there's the French bakery across the street. Now, promise me you won't go all Starbucks on us. If you're planning on getting on freaky with the corporates, we don't need your kind here. You know what they say – Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Starbucks – and I'm starting to think of you as a friend. And honest, you don't have to go downtown either. Larry at Acme Coffee makes the best lattes on the Peninsula. No lie.

I hope as you walk with your newborn past the corner of Fremont and Broadway that you aren't knocked flat by the smell of fast food grease. If that's unsafe, then, I guess it's a bit unsafe here. Forget what everyone says about the big tacqueria they all swear by. No, no, no. You want La Tortuga. They're open all day. Great food. If it wasn't for the Styrofoam for take out and the gargantuan TV screen showing novelas for those eating in, I'd be there all the time.

Over there we have the low income apartments. They were placed just right – only a few hundred yards from the fire station. Those old folks keep the firemen busy, let me tell you. The sirens get on my nerves. But unsafe, no, sweetheart, not that. Oh, wait, I spoke too soon. I should warn you; you gotta watch yourself some mornings. See that ugly old steeple up ahead? When the Baptists bury someone, whew! The parking can get tight. Cars every which way trying to find a place to land and if their drivers are teary-eyed, well, just look twice before you go walking all out in the street.

We have lots of problems. Can I ask you a few questions? Are you the kind of neighbor we want? Can you help? There's trash on the street here. Maybe you could organize a clean up? There's gang activity. Graffiti. The parks have glass in the sand. Any ideas? Aren't nearly enough trees for my taste. Maybe you could plant some? We might get something going with the neighborhood group here. I didn't get to tell you yet about them. They saved some of the parks from disappearing to developers and they helped buy new equipment for the kids. Oh, wait, I know. Can you talk to City Hall about the damn goose poop all over the lawn there? I mean, free summer concerts are great, but do we have to wear toxic clean up suits to enjoy it? And while you're there, put in a good word for the couple who run the Pakistani food store. They've been trying to get them to allow outdoor seating for about a year now. I mean, c'mon! And, well, there just isn't any accounting for taste. Some people have constructed some of the ugliest homesteads I can think of around here. You sure you are worried about safety? I wish that was all I cared about. Safety we got; aesthetics we're not so stocked up on.

You are interested in walking and believe me – I feel ya! You need somewhere to walk. I get it. I did it constantly. When we moved to this area originally, Isaac was almost a year old. No longer beholden to the “hometown” feel of that cutesy little hamlet 5 miles away that we tried in vein to fit into, I discovered that here in the scratchy part of town, people were kind in ordinary ways.

Like when I bought a portable crib from Jenny's Thrift Shop... Jenny, a Korean woman in her 50's with round cheeks and a heavy accent, questioned me sternly. “How you come here?” “Walked,” I told her. “How you get this home?” “Um, carry it?” I tried. “No! Too heavy!” she spat, pushing a pad of paper toward me. “You write down address. I deliver. Tonight!”

Then there was the bookcase we bought from the garage sale in the neighborhood. Mike was with me, Isaac was in the stroller. “He can put that in the truck and drive it over for you,” the woman said indicating her husband. It was a small bookcase. “I think we can carry it,” we both assured her. “And push the baby?!” Her inflection was sharp. She threw her wrist out letting her hand flop forward, her other hand on her hip. “Henry! Put that in the truck for her!” she commanded. And Henry did. I gave him our address just a few blocks down the hill. “I'll be along,” Henry told us. Half way home there was Henry and the truck and the bookcase beside us. I repeated the street number of our place into the window. Henry stared at me. I got in. When he delivered me and the bookcase to my door he instructed, “Now you just get yourself a break until those boys of yours get here.”

Well, that's our little neighborhood in a nutshell. There's a whole lot of shit that I'd change. We're just your average place, really. If you think you're up for it, maybe we can be neighbors.

Oh? What's that? Safe to walk at night? It's complicated, ma'am. Really. That's a whole other ball game and I have to go. I'm going to be late to pick up my guy and you've never seen him when I'm the last mama there – all hang-dog eyes, the word “abandoned” plastered across his forehead – it's terrible! I'm sorry that we didn't get a chance to really talk.

Little Monster at Work

Update on the What We're Reading sidebar.

For the record, my little monster tells me he wants to be a farmer. He won't have any crops on his farm, however, only animals. Every morning (and I do mean EVERY morning) when he wakes up, he announces that he's dreamed about a farm. Sometimes there are bunnies and horses and pigs on his farm. (Nevermind that the child won't go within 100 feet of the real versions of any of these animals.) Other times it's purple zebras and T-Rex.

Grace Paley

This is just one of the kinds of things I want to do more of that led me to quit my job... My review of Grace Paley's final book of poems, Fidelity.

out of the box

It's been two and a half years since my mother-in-law said to me, "Michael tells us you got yourself a little job."

This week I gave notice at my little job. I've been faithfully writing 2-4 articles a week (in about enough time to write one) about all kinds of events for the entertainment insert - from the interesting to the absurd. Most were theater openings or community festivals of one kind or another.

My editor told me he was sorry to lose me, that I'd really "grown into the job." Yes, I thought, now despite my best efforts to the contrary, I fit in the box, I have taught myself to color inside the lines. Many images came to my mind and I wished I had a cartoonist handy...Brig? Some of my struggles in newspaper writing have inspired such artists before.

I'm mostly getting out because my life is in a completely different place than it was two and a half years ago. I mean, check those photos if you don't believe me! And I'm leaving because there are so many projects and personal writings and possibilities that I want to pursue that have been shelved for a long time and are beginning to call to me - loudly.

Well, in another few weeks, the theater scene won't have this freelancer to push around any more, baby! (And I won't have free tickets...boo-hoo-hoo! Sob! Oh, why must I have such ambitions and morals? Why!?)

here we go...

First floor...Hosiery, ladies' handbags, electronics for geeks, one-way tickets to Geekdom...

Lately, every once in a while, Isaac likes to send an email to his dad or one of my friends. This exercise consists of me typing in their address and "from Isaac" in the subject line, then him punching long lines of nonsense letters in various colors and sizes.

I figure it's better than having my friends wait on the phone while he refuses to say hello and it's not like I bought him a Play Station. Plus, he gets to find the letters he wants and practice with lower case and capital letters, or, alternatively, just stay out of my hair for 30 seconds while I go to the bathroom.

So today in the midst of a composition to his father at work he announced, "Actually, I don't want to send a message to Daddy on the computer; I want to FIX the computer."

9/11

Isaac woke up this morning and said, "Mama, tell me about some people who died."

Kids can be spooky.

talkie-talkie

I face my new camping chair – the $5 clearance job with drink holder – at the grove of redwoods behind the tent and try to read.

Everywhere, someone to break the peace. One connected group has the next four or five campsites beside us – a total of about 200 people. Okay, 30, but still. They won't shut up. I mean, I talk alot, but there is a season (turn, turn, turn). What I'm dealing with is a cacophony of overlapping conversations that is truly non-stop.

The older I get, the more silence I need. When I was in college I lived on the 11th floor of a building that sucked up all the city street noise from the busy road below and when I wasn't doing my homework in the window seat to the serenade of sirens, I was buzzing around a suite populated by eight (count them) women. Not anymore. The thought of such an existence now makes me want to vomit.

On the way here, I announced in the car that no one was to speak to me. Mike ignored my request, asking if I'd brought the bug spray, commenting about the street signs. “Shut up,” I told him calmly. “Be quiet.” For a whole 30 minutes – oh kind karma! - Isaac was asleep, all his “Mama, looks!” hushed. Ever find yourself going on vacation with the exact people you need a vacation from?

When we arrived at our reserved site there was a tent already there. It was a large one that belongs, we'd come to discover, to our garrulous neighbors. There was also a gaggle of kids ages 6-13, I'd guess, sucking on blow pops and playing with fire. Mike got out to talk to them and got back in 60 seconds later with the report. “Their parents are 'somewhere over there',” he huffed fluttering his fingers in the vague direction of a clearing. “They don't know anything.”

As we headed around the small loop to go back to talk to the ranger at the kiosk, a woman called into our window, “Are you in 210? They just put the tent there to dry it out; I'll tell them to move it.” We circled back.

Slowly, ever so, the woman approached a crowd of seated adults engrossed in conversation. While we waited with a three-year-old bucking to get out of his carseat, four people began walking in what appeared to be the pokiest, most disinterested meander I've ever witnessed toward the drying tent.

We watched them coming. We watched; and watched. They became distracted by something off to the side, stopped for a moment; one drifted out of line; they walked on, still miles from their destination. It was like watching a rock video, the band lumbering in slow motion, dramatically cresting the hill, silhouetted on the horizon by the setting sun, headed for their instruments which, come the next scene, they would play in the suddenly pouring rain.

At this point, my husband, who gets angry approximately once every three or four years, leaped out of the car. “Can we help you hurry?” he said, addressing the band, “Because we need to camp!”It was typical of the sudden, unexpected nature of his outbursts, and of the charmingly moronic phrases he constructs in an attempt to show his true ire. Some people, like, oh, me, become verbose with anger, can't think of a word I don't like. Whereas Mike, on the other hand, loses even what few sentences he might have shared in better times.

Once, before we were married, we had booked a flight back to California from Boston that turned out to be delayed two hours – then five, six... nine. The airline staff did a hideous job of helping the tired, frustrated passengers cope. By hour seven, they returned our pleas for information with out and out rudeness. A pro at anger, both passive and active, I am content to mumble “Dickhead!” slightly louder than necessary after turning from the agent with attitude, but for Mike it proved too much.

“Look!” he said, red in the face and advancing to the counter. “You!...I'm!...THIS!...” He was wagging his finger, beside himself. “Not okay!...OKAY!?” he spat at top volume, clearly furious and made stupid by the adrenaline coursing through his gentle veins.

“Honey?” I said quietly, taking his arm and leading him back to our seats.

If I was looking forward to talking, conversation, it was at our next stop – two nights at a hostel on the water. When I recall the European hostels I've stayed at I think first of the kitchens, locatable by the low roar emanating from under the door, a happy crowd engaged in multi-lingual conversation, the table so covered in the brown necks of empty beer bottles no one could put down an elbow. The discussions centered around the local sights, the current political milieu, plans to meet up that next afternoon at the café around the corner or the following month in Turkey. Laughter. Songs.

I thought it well-timed then, that we were set to arrive at our hostel right around dinner time. The first sign I noticed was “Alcohol Strictly Prohibited.” Shit. We just hemorrhage boredom in this country. Everything is a warning. Nothing is allowed. In other parts of the world you can climb all the crumbling ruins you like and if you fall it's your own damn fault. Here, an entire panel of Isaac's beachball is dedicated to threats about misusing the apparent instrument of death.

I was further disappointed when I found the kitchen – empty. Everything was quiet. A solitary young woman smiled at us briefly from over the lid of her laptop in the living room before plunging on through cyberspace.

Later we would meet Martin. White-haired and dressed in red biking shirt and tan shorts, Martin would prove a constant during our stay as would his stories of Internet dating, his suspicions about the blondes from Nigeria, and other tales of ladies on line. On this first evening, after talking to us for twenty minutes about how he met Svetlana and consequently lived four winters in Siberia, he announced magnanimously, “I'll tell you my story...” I listened to the monologue for a while longer. It was just more talkie-talkie. I was beginning to crave silence again already. While Mike nodded on (off?), Isaac and I sneaked away to watch the sunset.

x-ray

We stare together at the x-ray of your two front teeth. One is pushed back just slightly, so slightly I almost can't tell until the dentist points it out. Above the pair of baby teeth, the two adult teeth waiting to replace them sit in the gum line, fully-formed.

Relief: no crack in the root.

I wasn't there when you fell, smacked your mouth on the cement. I was only there through the dried blood and swollen face, the popsicles and soup broth. And now this.

You are content in the big mechanical chair, your eye on the treasure box you'll soon get to pick from. And I am thinking about those teeth - the ones tucked away from view - imagining what other wonders of yours I still cannot see though they are already whole, complete, waiting their turn, like a second chance.

DNC, RNC, TGIF

The fingers are itching at the keyboard, only outlet available at the moment.

Thank god they are over. Convention this, buddy.

Of all the nonsense on both sides, all the days and all the speeches, all the things I tried to catch, all the things I missed, what do you think was the one thing I got to hear live while driving – Rudy Guiliani. Spare me. The crowd devolving into grunts, aping “USA! USA!” like they were at a hockey game. Gross. I couldn't hear anything after he called McCain “a willing foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” because I was screaming too loudly at the radio.

If I hear those two words together one more time, I'm going to lose it: Sarah Palin. The Republicans are so hard up, it really doesn't take much to get them charged these days. As cold as my blood runs when I hear John McCain whistling through his dentures about his so-called experience, at least he's not stupid. WTF with everyone who is seemingly baffled about his choice of a VP from that far off land of ALASKA. Hmmm...what could he have been thinking?? Gee, no idea. Right.

Palin and her BS about how Obama's only penned two memoirs but no laws. A) Untrue, see below. B) Funny enough, reflection is something I value and that could potentially benefit this stubbornly amnesiatic country.

Since when do we believe that being imprisoned gives you the right to the presidency? This country could have A LOT of candidates if that's the criterion. Maybe I don't want someone versed in war to lead me. Maybe there are other kinds of “experience.” Just maybe.

“Country first” = another euphemism to license a unilateral outlaw in its xenophobic, self-serving (oh, I mean, “National Security”) wars that dismiss the only truth, that the globe is connected in economic, environmental, social, and political ways that cannot be undone. One world, baby.

So let's try this. That's all I have to say. Now I have to go write about a tomato festival.

special

“What's a really special way a mountain can fall down, Mama?”

The yodeling mountain goat singing classics from the “Sound to Music” who eventually sends boulder after boulder to the ground doesn't quell Isaac's thirst for answers, any more than does the giant ladybug monster that flies to Earth from the Ice Cream Planet rattling the mountain and causing a landslide with its purple striped wings.

“What's another really special way a mountain can fall down?”

These kinds of questions take many forms. “What's a really special, special way a race car can break down?” “What's a really special way a raccoon can get hurt?” “What's something really special an excavator can drive through?”

“What's ANOTHER really special way a mountain can fall down?” he begs.

His world is infinite, endlessly sparkling with this special light. Does he believe, then, that there exist ordinary ways a mountain can fall? Does he believe me a fountain, with my fat lined thumb plugging the knowledge so that he is spared its beauty? He has everything and everything backwards. It is the mother that should beg for answers; it is the beauty of his small cheeks.

a relationship moment for the birds: explains a lot

The Stellar's jays at our campsite are brazen, fearless creatures who, along with their partners in crime, the squirrels, have so far eaten holes in a backpack, a cooler zipper and a pair of sunglasses.

At the campfire presentation one night, we learn the jays are related to crows, smart problem solvers who share information (which must go something like, “Now listen boys, if you can't get them to cough up the goods, fuck with their sunglasses...and don' eve' go against the family...”).

The whole evening is about birds as it turns out, with an ornithological specialist showing us slides of birds they've tagged. The yellow and black of a chickadee appears 1000 times its actual size on the screen, its colors faded in the mere dusk of early evening.

“Does anyone know what this bird is called?” our host asks.

“A woodpecker?” someone calls out.

“Noooooo,” she says, her voice raising higher as she stretches the word, generously allowing room for other possibilities.

“A sparrow?” a boy of about 12 tries.

“This bird is almost the same size as a sparrow,” she says by way of telling him he's wrong.

Her life's work against our little band of idiots, she's been passing out pencils made of recycled materials to anyone that gets a bird name right. Her left fist is still crowded with the implements and she pushes them back and forth in her hand.

“A mourning dove?” a woman pipes up.

Instead of throwing the pencils to the ground and stomping away, the woman says cheerily, “Wow! You all really know a lot of bird names!” Then she says, “Wellllll...” which clearly means “I'm going home to kill myself.”

I lean over and whisper to Mike. “Is it a chickadee?”

“No!” he scolds me returning my hushed tone.

“It's a chickadee,” the presenter announces a second later.

Mike and I exchange the glance, the one you would expect us to exchange. His says, “Oops!” Mine says, “You owe me, bastard! I wanted that pencil!”

But I've since forgiven him completely. You see, time away without the stresses and distractions of daily life, deepens a relationship. You learn about your partner things you may never have learned otherwise. And you learn that even in the still of the forest, the only way to be released from the pain is to move through it.

Since the bird incident, my husband has confessed to me that he was made to play the part of the gopher in his second grade theatre production. I blink, half-listening while he rattles on about it. And then, like a chunk of fool's gold, the nugget of truth shines. The play, it turns out, was “Winnie-the-Pooh.”

“Mike,” I say, being sure to speak especially slowly, “there is no gopher in 'Winnie-the-Pooh'.”

“I know,” he says.

“Oh, honey! You never told me!” I exclaim, moving to wrap my arms around him. “And anyway, it was just a pencil.”

role reversal

After all the camping adventures, they are starting to pile up. Our camping receipts marked with our site number and date of departure hang, taped to the inside of the windshield, driver's side. We are like those people with ski lift tags hanging from the zippers of their down vests (only slightly less pretentious).

We've crammed in a lot of camping in the last month. A good chunk in the last week. Life has been gloriously slow.

In our regular routine, it's me that plays primary care giver to Little Mr. Long Blonde Curls. I've got the day to day. I know what's caused the tantrums, how long the nap lasted, what deals have been brokered, how much broccoli was left on the plate. Mike plays relief pitcher – you know, the guy that comes in in the 8th and gets all the credit. His brief stint, consisting mainly of play time before bed, leaves the crowd cheering for more.

Out under the redwoods, however, things change. Mike assumes the greater responsibility for maintenance – chasing the small person with a toothbrush, say – and I, well, I take to the hammock with a book.

Apparently not everyone switches roles on holiday. From through the bushes one day we heard an angry woman's voice. “Sure!” it said rather violently, “Nobody thinks about MOM...” It roused me just slightly, but then I gave myself a push in the hammock and felt all better.

It was on the fifth straight day of our vacation that I sensed the shift in Mike. Day five seemed to herald in a tone of voice I don't remember hearing my husband speak in before, yet it was somehow familiar. “Maybe you should go to the potty NOW, because it's almost nap time,” he was saying. And then he approached me, swinging as I was under the redwoods.

“He asked if YOU would take him this time.”

“Okay,” I said, yawned and kept reading.

“It's getting to be nap time,” he tried again, tapping the face of his watch.

Reluctantly, I rolled out and into my shoes. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that was the tone of a harried housewife in his voice.

reading list

Update on the sidebar. Too many things to list!

Fire Season: On the Eve of Our Seventh Anniversary

August 4th was my wedding anniversary. We haven't really gotten to celebrate it yet. But we have instead just declared it our annivesary month. Each day we wish each other a happy anniversary and every other or so we open a bottle of wine.

The weekend before our day, we were camping in Big Sur. I lost my balance walking in the river and jammed the ring finger on my left hand. Luckily, I had enough presence of mind to move my wedding ring to my other hand before the injuried finger swelled up into a purple balloon. I'm still wearing the ring on my right hand as my knuckle hasn't quite gone back to its original ways.

Mike and I have something of a history with the Big Sur River and our anniversary. A couple months before our first year together his ring came off while we were walking together in the water and that was that. Gift to the gods. Had to have it remade.

The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur has a new slogan - "The Henry Miller Library - where nothing happens." This is of course a complete truth and a complete lie. Big Sur is a magical place where shit happens, in a Zen kind of not really sort of way.

We are about to go off again for more camping adventures beginning this weekend, and since by the time we return it will be the end of our anniversary month, I thought I would share this now, foolishly, perhaps, as no eyes but mine have seen it. I see it as kind of a companion piece to another poem I've been working on forever about my grandparents "practical romance" as I've imagined it. That one is called "The Space Between."

The poem below is a draft. They are all drafts. What the hell. Here goes:

Fire Season: On the Eve of Our Seventh Anniversary

My husband, my love
has never once called me any term of endearment
not a honey, not a sweetheart, I've never been baby.
So when the camping stove he was priming
to heat water for our dinner of soup broth and rice
lit the picnic table on fire and flames climbed
in a pyre that engulfed the view
from the triangle doorway of the tent
where I was reading, he said only
my name, once, almost quietly: Kitty.
And I flew from my spot to where he was,
bare feet scored by unfriendly brambles.

I will not be the one, I thought. I will not be the one
to set this forest back aflame, to scar the redwoods
I chose as respite. I will not be the one.
Those were the mind's musings in the moments
before reflection. And yet, why not me? Why
should I be blameless? Have we not all set fires
now and then, just to watch them burn?

My monologues, he quiet, closing,
both of us walled cities, and then a spark,
words too close to the wick and we ignite,
just briefly, a flash – like lightning in a forest.

Once when my grandmother was just a girl
lightning entered the kitchen window and burned
a black path across the floor while she watched.
What did she learn then, after the fear had dissipated,
taking up residence in this and that corner of who she was?

These forests - just open again after so much charring smoke,
dozers plowing fat lines through the dirt daring the flames to cross,
ocean copters dropping gallons to try to keep it in place.
The redwoods are fearless. Let it come, they whisper,
not a pang in any branch. Basin Complex Fire –
it means nothing to them - fire is fire, this one,
the one a hundred years ago, a hundred years from now.

There is a taking stock, a naming that happens
in the nebulous space before change clicks into place
and everything is different. He called me
to be beside him, if not to help extinguish
the danger, then to witness the burning. He called me,
my name invoked in calm terror.

The fire went out almost as suddenly as it lit. The stove
hurled in the fire pit, the table dowsed
with our weekend's drinking water. I stood, trembling,
on the eve of our anniversary, still raw
from so many parched acres, mighty hillsides
grey with ash. In seven years,
not a honeypie, not a single lovey-dovey.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
(I've already changed some of these lines twice in the few hours this post has been up. Stay tuned, it may continue to morph.)

patriotism

“See that castle over there?” my colleague scowls, directing my attention toward the ruins out the bus window long after we'd crossed the border into Slovakia. “That's a HUNGARIAN castle.” I widen my eyes and nod as he watches my face longer than necessary, searching for signs of treason.

***

That's the opening paragraph of an essay I wrote about going on a skiing trip with my school when I taught English in Hungary. Further along it continues like so:


“Where you're standing,” my co-worker begins again during a pit stop, “was aaaaaaaaall our country.” I survey the portable toilets, the spike-heeled women leaning against truck cabs. “Uh-huh,” I manage, and sip my Coke nervously.

***

The essay focuses mostly on my complete ineptitude on a ski slope while touching on the complicated history of Eastern Europe and a notion I encountered in Hungary that I like to call “armchair nationalism.”


The Hungarians can be somewhat nostalgic, shall we say, for their empire. What empire? you ask, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, sillies, which held its close out sale pretty near a century ago. But nevermind dates, those maps of the Glory Days are still rolling off the presses and hanging on Soviet-thin walls of apartments across the country, apartments belonging to old men who raise themselves slightly off the seat of their armchairs to point at them with shaking fingers thick as sausage links - “aaaaaaaaall our country!”

I began my year in Hungary knowing just three phrases in the language. They were “thank you,” “fuck you” and “I'm a vegetarian.”

When you think about it, without an extended stay, you can do pretty well on these little gems. But of course, after a while, I grew tired of the man at the photo developing shop shouting me deaf in German and decided to learn more. (One of the next things I added to my repertoire was “I don't speak German.”)

Eventually, with the help of a book, a tape, my students, an occasional tutor and lots of hands on life experience, I learned a decent amount of Hungarian. One of my obstacles to learning more, however, was that my other American friends sucked big time - as in huge juicy lemons - when it came to even ordering a bottle of wine. After months and months of being there they were still so pathetic, anything I could squeak out and with the help of hand motions get a native to understand made me look like I was some kind of linguistic savant.

The other deterrent to studying harder was the Hungarians themselves. They held deeply schizophrenic views of their native tongue. One day I'd hear, “Have you been practicing your Hungarian? HOW long have you been here? Let's hear what you can say, mm?” The same afternoon I'd get, “What in the world are you learning Hungarian for? It's a completely useless language! Stick to English. Take up French.”

Their patriotism, though sincere, contained some profound insecurities, or deep-seated doubts. I can relate. And I seem to have similar voices in my own head when it comes to what to do about political engagement three and a half years after the dawn of motherhood. One day the voices say “HOW old is your kiddo? Let's see what you can get out there and do to turn this place around for him, mm?” And a few hours on they croon, “What in the world are you thinking about political action for? It's useless to bang your head against the wall. You're busy; you're tired; you're doing all you can. Stick to day to day interaction with your son. That's where change begins. Introduce him to the world slowly. Take up French.”

I just don't know what to do. Read the paper or Dr Seuss. Volunteer for phone banking or discuss what brown spiders might eat for the better half of an afternoon.

I just don't want any bastards taking over our government again. When I look out my window, I want to feel like I have some say here, some control over how things go and how they got to be that way. I want to look out and think that's “aaaaaaaaaall our country.”

Amsterdam

It's closing in. November.

I often wonder if I am doing enough in my own world to change the political scene... A separate entry to follow on that, but in the meantime, here's a poem I wrote based on our experience at the start of the Iraq war. In the aftermath of dejection that followed the elation of the San Franciso peace march, we fled to Amsterdam for a week. The poem is modeled after a Ruth Fainlight poem. Her poem below too.

Amsterdam Bar, March 2003
(after Ruth Fainlight's “Handbag”)

The Amsterdam bar, dark at noon
crowded with people from anywhere
some, like us, trying to escape
the news of war. The smell of the bar: wood
and smoke and something like electricity.
Elbows leaning, fleshy buttocks edged
to the seam of high stools, all of them
doing their best to push aside
the loneliness of being human
at the start of the twenty-first century.
The looks on the faces of those others,
alight, then fallen, then hopeful,
read, and refolded so often.
Faces I see every day and will never
see again; the flash of CNN on the TV
monitors over our heads, we had to strain
to look, our necks in knots. Odor
of long wood burnished to a glossy finish,
gin and smoke, which ever
since then has meant strangers,
and love, and anguish, and war.
============================

Handbag by Ruth Fainlight

My mother's old leather handbag,
crowded with letters she carried
all through the war. The smell
of my mother's handbag: mints
and liptsick and Coty powder.
The look of those letters, softened
and worn at the edges, opened,
read, and refolded so often.
Letters from my father. Odour
of leather and powder, which ever
since then has meant womanliness,
and love, and anguish, and war.

mealtime manners

Isaac, it is safe to say, is a sensitive child. There are a growing number of books I cannot read him due to the fact that someone gets somehow lost for a sentence, or, god forbid a page or two, someone's mother is injured, angry or absent, or really any other conflict you can mention in which a misunderstanding causes characters to go through some brief turmoil. The end holds no sway over the means. Happy endings don't count for jack with my kid if along the way the wolf looked a tad cross-eyed at the pig. Pulling a book off the shelf at the library to read sight unseen can be disastrous.

Despite this kind of tender heart, he has never been fazed by the idea of animals eating other animals. “This dinosaur eats other dinosaurs,” he announces to me proudly, holding up his newest piece of plastic. “Woarrrrrr!” Indeed.

The other day, in fact, he wanted to know for the 100 millionth time since he's learned to speak what lions eat. It was that crucial time of day – 4 p.m. on a napless afternoon. “I don't know, Isaac,” I said wearily. “Maybe you can think about it,” he offered magnanimously. “Okay, I'm thinking...zebras?” At this point, you need to know if you've missed this fact, that children are NOT “sponges” in regard to information, as everyone is so very fond of saying. They are BLACKHOLES. Nothing satisfies these creatures. They are intellectual tapeworms who glom onto your brain and don't let go.

Consequently, Isaac asks what he always asks next, “What ELSE lions eat?”

As I was sitting next to a computer that happened to be turned on, I caved to the ready answer of the 21st century and typed “lion diet” into Google. I read off the list to Isaac: “Zebra, giraffe, buffalo, gazelles, wildebeest, and impala.”

“Me wanna see pictures of lions eating.”

“No you don't.”

“Yeah, me wanna see PICTURES!!!!” (This speaking in all capital letters, while not new to the cadence of my son's speech, has recently taken on more nuance - read: Attitude.)

Reluctantly, I brought up a couple small photos.

“That a zebra?”

“It appears to be,” I tell him, peering at the thumbnail of an unfortunate striped leg in the center of a pride of lions. I glance at the picture beside that one. “Oh, look, we can add 'hyena' to our list, too, Iz.”

He leans into the computer screen at the bloodied mouth of a young cub.

“Hey! Let's do something else now!” I suggest.

Yesterday, a friend took me to lunch in Big Sur for my birthday after we picked up our respective wee ones from preschool. Driving down it was gorgeous, as always - the hills putting on a burlesque show with their wardrobes of fog until they were wearing nothing but sunshine.

“Look, Iz, look at that hawk!” The big ole wings were hovering in the blue just ahead of the car.

“Hawks eat fish?” he asks.

Brightened by this change of syntax and line of questioning, I'm refreshed, buoyant even, in answering.

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, they would. I've seen pictures of eagles with fish in their talons, so I guess hawks would eat fish too. But they aren't really fishing birds like pelicans. They also eat stuff like mice, nun-nuns (our left over baby word for your general rodent)...and rabbits...” I add a moment later.

“Wabbits?”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence, then, “Me wike wabbits.”

I'm taken back. This hesitation is new. Flashes of hyena fur run through my mind and the mystery of what goes on behind those blue eyes in the back seat deepens. “I like rabbits too, honey. Is it hard to think about something eating them?”

“Me wike wabbits!” he repeats defiantly. “Hawks shouldn't eat wabbits. That's WUDE!”

birthday present

My son announces that they've wrapped up my birthday books. When I rouse myself from bed on this, the morning of my 39th birthday, he hands me a package wrapped in yesterday's obituary page and tells me, "This is the book I picked out for you at the dump!" I laugh and take it from his delicate hands that have never stilled, since the day he was born they have curled and wiggled, trying to grasp this world that I forgot to wrap for him, though if I had, it would probably have been folded into the obituary page and nevermind because here he is tearing it open, my book from the dump, helping me, one of those hands trying out all of the intricacies of its digits, each of the five with its own idea, struggling to gather themselves to work for a single cause and all the while he is jumping up and down in front of me singing "It's Mama's birthday; It's Mama's birthday!" and all I can think is I really should have gotten him something better, not just this white elephant prize, orb spinning in its own excrement, all of its beautiful forests doomed, and now he's shouting "Hurry! Get it open!" and the paper tears wide and he leaps across the room, lands with his palms spread flat against the blank white wall.

fashion notes, or, how you know you live in too small a town

I've decided I despise all of my clothes and wouldn't miss a thing if I suddedly discovered my closet raided by gypsies, eaten by crows, or stripped to threads by microscopic weavers from a parallel universe where everything moves backwards. (I'll pause here while you recover from that strange and terrifying image.) ...

You can blame the fashion plate you see in the picture to the left. I know I do.

Nearly three and a half years after the birth of my shining little clothes horse, I have yet to adjust to my new body. It's actually been many bodies since then, really.

When Isaac was first born, I sent Mike out to Goodwill to get me nursing shirts - as in, crappy stuff I could stain or that unbuttoned easily. Half of what he brought didn't fit over my burgeoning boobs. I was confused. This had never come close to happening to me before. I stood in front of the mirror, quizzical. My husband clarified things for me: "They're HUGE!"

Next, I was a breast-feeding, walking machine. I did both activities interminably on a daily basis. Consequently, I ate an embarrassing number of chocolate peanutbutter brownies per week while losing weight right and left. (I don't have a name for this former diet as of yet, but I'll be holding a contest, so send in suggestions. The winner gets to share a chocolate peanutbutter brownie with me. ) This is my personal favorite of the post-partum body phases. However, I was also unbelievably sleep-deprived and hormonally insane and therefore couldn't really work it up to put on anything more than the same pair of filthy jeans and white sweater with chocolate drool on the collar every day.

In addition, there is that inexplicable piece where, although you are below your pre-baby weight, you still don't fit into the clothes you knew and loved as a childless person, since along the way to his graceful entrance from that world to this one, the kid RESHAPED YOUR SKELETON.

No worries. Okay. Next phase: the no longer breast feeding, moved to a less walkable neighborhood, work from home, phase. Oink. Followed quickly by the no longer breast feeding, moved to a less walkable neighborhood, work from home, the kid only wants to go as far as the park in the stroller phase. Oink. Oink.

There is a bag in the bottom of my closet. It is full of clothes I technically fit in but that are not currently comfortable. To confess to having this bag is to confess that I am living my life in a future or past fantasy. It's ugly. The bag is bad news.

When I was in college, I can remember shopping for clothes and having to go back and forth to and from the dressing room a million times because everything I picked out literally fell off me. You could say I had a distorted body image. Times change. Sort of. The distortion has only distorted in a different direction these days.

The motley array of clothes I claim as mine do not make me happy. I've been threatening forever to toss them all and start again and my big chance came just two days ago. I was at a dance performance. Afterwards, I left my crappy pink acrylic sweater with a hole in one sleeve on the chair where I was sitting. I realized it before I left the building.

I made a decision. I was leaving it there. This was the first day of the rest of my fashion life. I would give away one piece of clothing every day until everything I had even the remotest hesitation about was gone, gone, gone. Kind of like the frog in boiling water scenario, I would do it a little at a time, and by the time I noticed, it'd be too late. Perfect. I walked out in the brisk night air sleeveless and determined.

Last night, at dinner, I suddenly realized I'd almost forgotten my promise. "I haven't chosen what piece of clothing to give away today!" I told Mike spiritedly. "Oh," he started, playing with his pasta. "I forgot to bring it home." Huh?

Oh, yes, you see, someone I was sitting next to at the dance performance works with Mike and someone she knows got the sweater from someone she knows, who knew that I was sitting there and that I was Mike's wife and so gave it to Kyra to give it to Mike to give to me... In a complex and disgustingly magic route, called "I live in too small a town," the vile article of clothing found me again. But I'm refusing it entrance to the premises. That kid in the picture may have dumbed me down more than I know, fattened me up more than I'd like to admit, but no crappy pink acrylic sweater is going to keep me there.

return to big sur

Okay, so most of the hiking trails were still closed. Sure, we camped next to a blackened hillside. And no, no one was walking inadvertantly through a spider web as they were all highly visible covered in ash.

Still... we needed to see that this was still there.

24 hours after they re-opened the parks, our tent was up and ready for action. The campground was full - mostly locals who grabbed up the canceled sites which had likely been reserved for months before the fire broke out, folks, like us, who just needed to be there again.

books on the sidebar

New post on "What We're Reading" over to the left. The titles are links if you want to read more about the books.

running

And I think I will sleep

when you leave with your dad in the jogging stroller to run the track behind the high school.

It is cold and foggy and July. You will beg to get out and run too. Daddy will let you and he will be surprised at how fast you are.

I'm sure I will curl into bed again as soon as you're gone - it is not yet 8:30 on a Saturday morning - and I will return myself to dreams I was wrested from a short time back, return finally to a peace that though it's eluded me for the last three years is always just around
the next corner and when I catch up with it I will reach my hand out like toward a lover at an airport arrivals terminal realizing all at once how much I took for granted, weeping for joy and our reunion.

But instead, when the door closes and it's quiet, just me and the cat, I reach for poetry, read it aloud to hear my own voice. I open my journal to pen these lines. It's not that I'm not still exhausted, or that I don't miss that state of my life, the one from my dreams from before you arrived wide-eyed and blank with hope. On the contrary, I am desperate, depleted, which somehow explains why I imagine I can hear the gravel rolling under your garage sale sneakers, Daddy letting you pass him, and you, going by like a blur.

raising a child in california

part I

(5:00 am)

"Mama?"

"Mm?"

"Where do sea otters poop?"

part II

"Ring around the Rosie,
pocket full of guacamole..."

Fire - hold the works

(I'm afraid this is more of a report than anything else. I don't know what to do with my anxiety about this stuff and I don't have time to weave the perfect writing piece.)

I admit I've never been a fan of fireworks - celebrating with something that represents the heinous idea of exploding bombs? In the part of town where I live, the "backyard" fireworks are legal. Kiosks selling them generate big money for churches and youth organizations.

Let's forget all the other reasons this makes no sense and think for a minute. Let's just imagine that Joe Idiot sets himself or his house or his neighbor's lemon tree on fire and it gets a little out of control. The fire fighters as far as I can see are a little - what should we call it - BUSY. At the very least, have some respect.

We've been surrounded this year. Santa Cruz Mountains, Bonny Doon, and Watsonville to the north, The Indians and Big Sur (officially the "Basin Complex Fire") to the south.

The town of Big Sur has now been completely evacuated. More than 61,000 acres have burned in that fire alone and it is all of 3 % contained. (No, I didn't leave out a number that's three percent.) My gardening tools are still covered in ash from last weekend. This week, the winds have changed and while we get sunny skies, one of the most beautiful places I know is blackened or alight with flames.

Information on the Big Sur fire is here:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/lospadres/conditions/
http://xasauantoday.wordpress.com/fire-links/
http://www.surfire2008.org/

neighbors and community again – what else

I have a friend who lives within a 10-minute walk of my house whom I have not seen in person for over a year. Clearly, we are not that close, though it's not for lack of effort. The last time I invited her to something she accepted but we were coming from different places at different times and she got lost on the way to the theater and didn't make the show.

To add to the absurdity of our paths not crossing over the less than quarter mile between us, in the last year, she has checked in on my cat numerous times while we were out of town – supplemental visits to our paid cat sitter and garden waterer. After the last time she did it I had phoned her to thank her for hanging out with Emily in addition to expressing some embarrassment and exasperation that she only comes to my house when I'm not in it. “That's okay,” she intoned matter-of-factly, “there's more than one way to get to know a person.”

The comment stopped me. I looked around at the layers of dust covering every flat surface of my abode, the ashes and photo collage of my cat still perched shrine-like atop the tallest bookcase in the living room a year and a half after she passed (certainly where she would have sat had she lived to make the move to our 5th California address in 9 years.); I glanced at what magazines spilled over the edges of the coffee table, at Mike's boyhood teddy bear in a corner of the bedroom, the red felt oval of its mouth faded and coming unglued, and nervously wondered exactly what she meant. Is this just one more weird, modern hiccup? Phantom friends? I'm ready to give up trying to get together. And that makes me sad.

****

In retrospect, I felt something was wrong right away.

I saw my next door neighbor's friend watering her garden. You might not think this strange, unless you knew my neighbor. At 81, she'd totter out with her hands spattered in paint – just redoing the hallway, she'd explain. Every Monday and Wednesday morning she'd head out to work – caretaking at a mansion in Pebble Beach. Her baked goodies come in a steady stream over the fence to us. We've become her best customers since her husband passed away a year ago.

Like most of us, I set aside my instincts and continued on to wherever I was going. A couple days later, we still hadn't seen Mrs. Johnson. There was no answer at her house, so I left a note in the mailbox.

I got a call the next day from her friend, Rose. Mrs. Johnson was in the hospital – a stroke. She was doing well in physical therapy, but she'd stay there another couple weeks.

Mrs. Johnson has no family here. She is a native of Austria. Her husband has a niece left in Mississippi. They had no children - “unfortunately” as Mr. Johnson once explained to me. (Mrs. Johnson used more bitter language regarding the issue. Apparently, they tried to adopt and were turned down.) I imagine they weren't the most popular couple in 1950, when she, a German-speaker, decided to marry an African-American soldier just after WWII.

When I called, she insisted I not come to visit her at the hospital. (“Oh, Kitty, you never know when they will come and take me for exercises – sometimes 10:00, sometimes 2:00. You'll drive all the way out here and I won't be in my room.”) I was both surprised and glad when she talked about possibly hiring someone to help her with things when she got back home. Those prone to stoicism can often convince those around them of their facade. I took over watering her geraniums from Rose and waited to hear more news.

Many of us live far from our families. And family ties are family ties. But they cannot be all that sustains us. Sometimes they just can't do the job from plane rides away. Phone calls to family become what they must after years of living thousands of miles apart – selective reports or calls of crisis. We don't have each other's everyday. What can we do, but turn to those near us?

The world we live in today is practically vibrating with change. It has proposed to stretch itself so far into globalization that it feels mighty close to snapping back into tiny self-sustaining communities – a post-oil "apocalypse" where neighborhoods grow their own food and share in a balance of trades. Count me in. And this cyber bullshit is just that. Sorry. Mrs. Johnson doesn't own a computer.

I had all these things already swirling in my mind and my journal when I got a call from a social worker at the hospital. Would I be able to check in on Mrs. Johnson regularly for the first couple weeks after she got home tomorrow? Would I follow up with them and let them know if she turns in the applications for emergency medical alerts and door to door pick up on the senior buses?

We live in an era when relationships can have nothing at all to do with geography, unless they have everything to do with it.

under the wing

We are in a heat wave here in Central California. Things are, as they say, hot as blazes. The first fire of the year early this month in the Santa Cruz mountains saw thousands of acres burned and homes lost. Then it was Bonny Doon, also in Santa Cruz County. As our plane made its descent on the way home from our trip last week, our pilot informed us we might see some smoke to the south – there was a fire in a part of the Ventana Wilderness called The Indians. Number three. At least three more areas ignited to various degrees all yesterday afternoon.

So, when driving home from the dump (well, fair reader, it IS Saturday after all and you KNOW my family's habits) we were a bit surprised to notice clouds in the sky. Not just any clouds – these were quite clearly rain clouds.

There we were driving along in hot sunny weather while in the distance on three sides of us, the sky was dark, illuminated every now and then with wicked jags of lightning. Thunderstorms are practically unheard of here. Don't have the right mix of stuff in our climate.

I would say there was an electricity in the air, but obviously, that's redundant. Still, I was awed by the dark cloud formations directly ahead of us which looked exactly like a giant eagle with its head turned to one side and its enormous wings spread wide over us. As we drove it stayed just above us in a feathery embrace, dark wings contrasted against white puff.

By the time we made it home (about 15 minutes), most of the bird had morphed into other things, but its right wing was still distinct and reaching out above our house and the line of neighbors to one side. The thunder and lightning got closer until beautiful rain began in oversized drops plunking like witless parachuters on the front walk. The winds convinced me to turn off the ceiling fan for a while. I shut down the computer and dragged our 18-gallon rain catching tub to its most auspicious location before Mike had a chance to tell me I was crazy.

I'm out of practice with these matters. Indeed, the rain ended as quickly as it had started. I sent the fans spinning again and got my head back in the game: summer in Central Calif. We're not likely to see water fall from the sky again until at least October. Forgive me, I guess I was in the mood for some magic.

What we're reading

updated side bar since it was way out of date. a bit of a rush job as little one wants mama to be ALL DONE. it's time for weekend play. see ya.

Cape Cod

I admit that before I went to Cape Cod, I had no geographical clue.

My knowledge extended only to the fact that I would be north of New York and south of Maine. I thought it was just “a” place, like somehow that little curly cue sticking out off the upper right side of our country was “Cape Cod” - the one place. As many of you more versed in New England and common knowledge than I am I'm sure know, it is in fact hundreds of miles – a whole peninsula leading up to the curly cue with lots of places along the way.

The names of these spots are what I would like to talk about first. You'd think since I was born on Long Island that boasts some killer indigenous names like Massapequa and Ronkonkama, I'd be over the funky indigenous sounds, but I never get tired of these: Sippewisset? Sandwich is always good for a chuckle, and there is East Chop and West Chop, as if the place has side burns. Mashpee, Mass. - Do they make baby food? Then try out a few like – out loud remember and with your creative caps on – Falmouth and Hyannis.

My far-and-away favorite Massachusetts town name, however, is no where near Cape Cod but too good to pass up: Athol (long o). I just bounce around the house saying it over and over again – Athol, Athol. It makes me so perversely happy. The only thing I find funnier than pondering why on earth a town would retain the name Athol, is thinking about what exactly the people from that town call themselves...

Maybe it's because I was raised on a crowded, touristy peninsula, home to the newly wed and nearly dead that touted “dockside dining” (read: seagull poop on your table) where the streets - depending on the tides - had a way of smelling like various shell fish and other stinky catch. Or, maybe it's because I am currently living on a crowded, touristy peninsula that touts similar residents and dining options and indeed reeks like yesterday's clams when the wind is right. While I felt quite at home in Cape Yawn, I'm not rushing back. I must say also that people were friendly – to the point where as I walked along the bike path talking to Mike on the cell phone they continued to greet me. My side of the conversation: “Hi. ... No, not you. What? Hi. ... No, not you. What?”

Just before heading out to CC, I was going on and on to Mike about how I just didn't know if I could ever live away from the ocean as we walked around groovy Northampton, Mass. with its rainbow flags outside the churches and its Poetry Center at Smith College which this past spring apparently hosted Tony Hoagland, Sharon Olds and Mark Doty – a trifecta of holy cow in poetry (“All events free and open to the public”). Flash ahead to Camp Dockside Dining (I hate seafood, have always, and now am a committed vegetarian) with its accompanying aromas and its sleepy pace and I started to wonder about myself. Luckily, we can sniff out the rebels pretty much anywhere and so stumbled onto the proverbial café/bakery with its menu in big chalky orange letters, its fair trade coffee and its bulletin board advertising yoga classes and Westfalias for sale.

Just to put a face on my passive hostility to the homey little Cape, I left without purchasing a teeshirt, not even one with a black dog on it. I'm reasonably sure I could have been held at security in Logan Airport for such an offense had they cared to investigate (though when you come right down to it, Logan needs no extra reasons for delay...).

What I did do is something I like to try to do in places I visit whenever possible. I seek out craftspeople, the tradesmen, the artists, the workshops. In Santa Fe, it was the indigenous people shaping storyteller bowls out of clay. In Otavalo, Ecuador it was everything from reed boxes to felt hats. In Cape Cod, it means potters.

In the days before Isaac, I was free to creep up to someone's home where there was sewing happening in the back room, a wheel spinning yarn in some tiny shed in the yard and tap lightly, hesitantly before being let in to view their wares and watch their process. These days I get to pick one potter that I can check out briefly while Mike and Isaac are around the corner at the beach.

I didn't get to meet the artist herself, unfortunately, but I did get to spend time with her lovely mother who said the most irresistible things, the first memorable one being: “Go look over there, dear. There's a beautiful piece you can't have.”

I spent a good while poking around the laundry room/studio before emerging back up the stairs next to the pantry with three ceramic cups that fit wonderfully in my hands. Mom was on the phone drumming up volunteers for something or other. I stepped gingerly over the extended hose to her oxygen tank and watched the turtles splashing wildly in an aquarium nearby.

“Hello, Steve and Alice.” She was talking to an answering machine. “I'm calling because I know you'll want to take the Wednesday spot again from 12 to 2 for July. That's the one we need filled. I know you have so much fun doing it and I so appreciate it. Maybe you'll call me back soon and confirm that you're going to do it. You know...” (I was beginning to wonder what kind of time allowance Steve and Alice's voicemail carried.) “... you can bring lunch and just sit and enjoy th view. We really need the help, and I thank you; I thank you. They say you should only do it if you really love doing it, but of course I know you really love doing it...” (apparently, a hefty time allowance. I looked around at the art on the natural wood walls, more artists in the family judging by the signatures. I felt the grip of my new cups painted in ocean blues and greens.) “...So, Alice, I meant to thank you for the flowers you brought me...”

The message continued for what seemed like another three or four minutes, after which I wanted to put down my cups and take Mom home instead. “Okay, then, bye-bye now.” Click.

“Ooooooo!” she hummed, turning her attention immediately back to me. “You've made some good choices. I have to get down there and get one of these for myself,” she mused, turning my favorite in her hands. I started a bit imagining her headed down the steep, narrow staircase with her tank, but had no trouble believing she could find a way to do it.

“I think this one's $18,” she told me, estimating up $2 from the smaller cup, the only one with a price tag. “If it's not,” she continued, eyeing and immediately disregarding my California address in the guest book, “you'll be back again and we'll give you $2.” The turtles tumbled off their rock, mouths agape, jaws working under water. I was glad to have had this moment in the inner sanctum of a real life in a foreign/too familiar place, but the turtles and I both knew it'd be a while before I'd pass this way again.

HFCS/DVD Nation, what we're feeding our kids

(I'm starting to feel like a really preachy prude, but here is something else that was in the chute. You can give at least part credit to Barbara Kingsolver whose book I'm reading and which I will post in "What We're Reading" shortly.)

There are no two ways around it. This trip was the most sugar-laden episode of Isaac's 3 years and almost 4 months here on earth.

Who knows what he was lapping up in utero with my chocolate pudding pie cravings (you-know-you're-pregnant-when...you keep an ample supply of graham cracker crusts in your house at all times.), but since emerging into this little red state – blue state game we call life in the U.S. he has been spared much of mine and my husband's addiction to the sweet stuff.

I was somewhat prepared to throw my hands up for this special adventure and return to eating beets, broccoli and peas from our garden again once we got back home. As we settled in to our flight three hours behind schedule, I was also relieved that the video monitors were limited to the area high above us in the center aisle so that I wouldn't spend the “in flight entertainment” portion of our journey keeping Isaac from watching incredibly violent movies. Even “Alvin and the Chipmunks” - a video version of which hung directly in front of our seats on the last air travel sojourn, involved scenes of stress and violence that put Isaac on the verge of tears - “Me no like dit mobie!” For the moment, all was well. Then we arrived, and we were back on track for the original issue.

We won't even count his grandmother's Rice Crispie treats and frog eye salad (some sort of jello, marshmallow concoction if you must know). Or her proclaimed “healthy” supply of snacks for our plane ride back including chocolate fudge granola bars. Just joshing – of course we'll count those! “You don't want him to have it, do you?” my mother-in-law would chuckle while offering the cookie jar. I'm so glad flaunting our lifestyle choices for our son amuses you.

Then there is the little moments of earned yum or of stress that sent Mike after bread pudding covered in whipped cream at one dinner, and my cave to chocolate chip cookies another day. The convenience store shopping turned up yogurt (high fructose corn syrup) and wheat crackers (high fructose corn syrup). The choices at our breakfast bar were so scant I agreed to a fruit bar – always bad news (high fructose corn syrup).

But the crowning moment of sugar rushes was when we were finally escaping for home. After driving in circles at 4:30 am trying to follow our hotel's directions to the airport, we arrived at our rental car return. The only person there at that hour was the same man who'd been whipping cars around the lot when we got the thing. He was about the size of the SUV he was standing next to and he addressed my son:

“You're not awake yet, huh?”

Isaac blinks.

“Want some candy?”

I checked – no trench coat. No van parked outside the school playground....What the hell kind of line was that??

“Nooooo!” Isaac squeals with a giggle twisting into me. He too believed it must be a joke.

“Oh, c'mon,” he continues, “I'll share my Mike n Ikes with you.”

“No, thank you,” I tell him this time, still convinced he must be kidding.

“Cookie?” he persists, ignoring me and speaking again directly to Isaac.

“We're not doing candy for breakfast and we're not doing cookies for breakfast,” I say more firmly.

“Aw, why not? He's gonna have Duncan Donuts in the airport anyway. What's the difference?”

This is Duncan Donuts country. The prevalence of Duncan Donuts stores here is second only to discussion of the Celtics and Red Sox as a cultural marker, (and of men like the one I saw in a “YANKEES SUCK” teeshirt, the letters a foot high on his chest - miraculously I managed to hold my tongue; he was with his elderly parents and I thought it best not to cause a scene). We know people who wanted to name their son Duncan but were discouraged by family members who feared that his recess buddies might nickname him Donut, or worse. I think to be incorporated as a town here you must provide habitat for no less than 3 Duncan Donut establishments.

While I was not about to accept Mike n Ikes (even if they do carry the names of my boyZ) from the 5-foot, 300-pound model of healthy choices, to some extent, he did have a point. Under the lean tutelage of his father, Isaac picked out a giant corn muffin at the airport. My bite tasted mostly like cake.

I have a dentist appointment for my dear one in about 3 weeks to fill a small hole in the far back upper right side of his mouth. Our pediatric dentist is very nice and while Isaac does not relish going, I'm hoping for the best. The office does have an unfortunate habit, however, of turning on the enormous video screen in front of the chair to “entertain” the kids while they are worked on. When we were there for our cleaning, just as Isaac sat down it was the part in “Ratatouille” when someone is shooting a gun at the rat – ah, how soothing.

Wish me luck.

may Bob the Builder rot in hell

I may be joining him, but let’s talk about little-mister-fix-it first.

My son likes trucks. A lot. Blame it on Salvador – our garbage man from when Isaac was approximately 11 months old until he turned 2 – who would faithfully wave with umph and spirit as Isaac gawked in admiration from the window. Blame it on the Y chromosome. Blame it on the fact that I live in an area that refuses to accept the housing crash or the scarcity of available land or of open space as a natural and needed resource and so is constantly under construction. Blame it on Bob the freaking Builder and the fact that in a weak, unguarded moment, his father and I actually willing rented Isaac a video entitled “Bob the Builder Meets the Real World” which, besides “visits” to real work sites, featured squirrels and bunnies and other forest creatures excitedly begging Bob to tell them more about how to build roads. Cut me a flipping break already.

Let me tell you, this “phase” of Isaac’s has lasted WAY TOO LONG.

And let me tell you something else: I HATE TRUCKS. The trucks and construction vehicles I hate include, but are not limited to: garbage trucks, front loaders, fork lifts, excavators, mini excavators, back hoes, cranes, graders, rollers, pavers, dump trucks, giant dump trucks (yes, this is a category of truck), tractors, scrapers, street sweepers, cement mixers, skid steers, bulldozers, utility vehicles, snow plows, and logging trucks.

One more thing – the only thing I hate more than trucks is PLAYING trucks. One of the nicest things about being away this past week was getting us out of our routine and doing some different things – a swim in the hotel pool, a ride on the bike path, a visit to a new library, the beach. Isaac couldn’t drag me out to the driveway and begin “You’re gonna me dit truck, ‘n’ me gonna be dit truck.”

Today, while we are still all feeling the jet lag, I brought my obviously tired boy home after preschool, betting on an early nap. Before we were out of the car Isaac told me, “me weawy busy with some work trucks ober hewe, so I haffa go do dat.” And off he went to pick up where he left off this morning, and the day before, and the week before that. It’d be just fine, except that after about 3 minutes the inevitable happens…

“Mama, dit a weawy bid job. So I need you to help me.”

I told him I’d come out and sit with him and check out what he was doing while I read a little. (He wasn’t the only obviously tired one.) That lasted not so long before the whining started up. “Me need SOMEBODY pway wid me.” Boing!!

Did you hear that sound? It was my heart strings singing out their best twang. Now, don’t get me wrong, we do LOTS of discussion about the adventures and advantages of playing by oneself. “Isaac imagination time” is implemented more and more often around these parts. But truth be told, I hadn’t played with him in a while and was hoping between a (fingers crossed) extended nap and the arrival of his dad not to have to sit in gravel pushing a plastic four wheeler at all on this particular day in history.

Here’s the equation: Jet lag/exhaustion + bad back + old game + new magazine in the mail + bad mommy attitude = no wanna play.

But that little whine plugs right in to something else – the idea that Isaac is an only child. That I am making that conscious decision for him. That he, like I did, spends the vast majority of his time with adults, without other children around, and often with just me, while he clearly, like I do, absorbs his energy by being part of a group. Under the circumstances, I feel like I should be a better play-with-me mama. But I can’t stand it. I admit it. Sorry. I don’t have the lose-myself-like-a-kid-in-play-gene. Perhaps I never did. I really go crazy. I do it – I lie on the floor and pick up his building blocks with the truck of the week, but I am always looking for an out. There are a few things I’m good at doing – puzzles I’m okay with, drawing I’m down with, but trucks – I’d really rather slam some remote part of my body in the garage door.

The pouting escalated to stone throwing and stomping on mama’s camping chair. Sometimes I wonder Isaac’s under-motives with his behavior, but it didn’t take an early childhood education major to figure this one out. Here I was, planted with a magazine. Here he was asking me to play. Maybe another day I would have caved. I often do. But shit. What’s the recipe when I just don’t want to? I just don’t. It’s mama mental health day. I told him (reluctantly) that if he let mama read for a little while then I’d play trucks with him. Not good enough. With tantrum at full capacity, I got to pull out the old “you must not want mama to play with you at all then” and we both came in the house.

After a few “I want DADDYs!!!” and much snot on his newly washed jean jacket, we figured out that a snack might help along with a visual depiction of the rest of our day, into which I (reluctantly) built Mama and Isaac play time.

I don’t know how to resolve this long term. I don’t really enjoy my days at home and that sucks, it’s tiring in and of itself. I can’t always blow him off to play alone. And then there are the trucks themselves and what they represent.

Bob, may you and Scoop and Rollie and whoever else those ridiculous characters are, pave yourselves a road straight to hell.

Stay tuned late this week as I explore more on the Y chromosome and the lives of bugs in the balance.

Eco-mama – Oxymoron?

(apologies for the soap box rant, lots in the chute and hopefully I'll have time to write it all down but gotta get some things out of the way to clear the path)

In a personal essay I read recently, the author was discussing how environmental parenting often feels to her like a contradiction in terms. I don't actually remember her examples, but I have plenty of my own so that the idea stuck with me:
- We're tired, so we order take out. The giant maw of Styrofoam shells mock me, the numbers on the bottom bordered by a swirl of arrows a joke since no program or municipality I know recycles them.
- Isaac is almost asleep, so I drive just a bit longer. The thought of not reading that blasted construction truck book again AND risking no nap at all in the end when he tells me “My body weawy wants to wate up” outweighing the waste of our nation's favorite limited resource.

On vacation, as we just were (Well, as vacation-y as we get anymore. Consider a visit to the in-laws and a work conference for Mike.) things can get even dicier. At first, I felt good doing my part to save the Great Hospitality Waste since Isaac was always napping – or his mother was trying for one anyway – during the times housekeeping normally wants to pull their trolley up to your room and give you a new everything. The Do Not Disturb sign, as it turns out is nature's strongest advocate.

There are those perfunctory attempts at ecological awareness now in most hotels – that card you leave or don't on your bed depending on whether you want them to wash your sheets every freaking day or just when you check out. Still. These nods to water conservation don't go nearly far enough.

They sneaked in once, those housekeepers, while Isaac and I were returning our rented bike and trailer – and what the hell?? Where is my soap? They took away the perfectly good soap I'd unwrapped less than 24 hours before and replaced it with another, wrapped soap. I understand that they are supposed to supply you with a new little wrapped soap, update your tiny shampoo and whatever else they are mandated to waste, but where the hell did the other soap go? Are we that seduced by “luxury” that we want to open a new fucking bar of soap every day we're on vacation? War time rationers we are not.

There was a restaurant near where we stayed called the Landfall Restaurant. We didn't go for perhaps obvious reasons. WAY too close to Landfill for me. There's one they didn't research all that well. Just say it out loud, people. It's a crucial stage in my creative process and one, I think, everyone should employ. (Have you ever heard that NPR show called “Open Source” - Not. Good.) Despite the fact that we avoided the Landfall, the breakfast buffet at our hotel proved nearly as harrowing an environmental catastrophe. Plastic utensils. Styrofoam cups next to the water pitcher (Yeah, those mugs full of water would be a bitch to wash!) etc. etc.

But my ultimate plea is this: please, don't kill the environment in the name of my child. Honest, he can drink from a real, live, breakable cup – even (gasp!) without a straw. As much as we appreciate the acknowledgment of the possibility little people may enter through your doors, I'm begging you not to do it through purchasing mass quantities of plastic panda cups with sippy lids or disposable tumblers covered in cheery jungle scenes, the likes of which may be long gone by the time they finish manufacturing the bloody receptacles.

A new one this time was the addition of Pooh characters smiling out at us though they suffered the ends of plastic forks, knives, and spoons jammed up their yellow, orange and pink rears. They are just cute enough and strong enough to save and we decided to salvage another ecological travesty and take them home. When we realize Pooh has just been swept away with Isaac's mostly uneaten lunch (honey yogurt and apple granola were unbelievably not on the menu), we ask the server if she can retrieve it for us. “I can get you a new set,” she offers. “No, no, really, it's fine,” we protest. So off she heads to the kitchen, returning in seconds with a new set. “Just brought a clean one,” she explains, “We have SO many.” Then by all means...

hair

(Mom, this is for you.)

“Your daughter...”
“Son.”
“...Uh, your son has such beautiful hair.”

Top ten pieces of evidence on how groovy men with long hair are/why I shouldn't cut my son's hair.

10. Long hair plays a part in animals' natural selection since it is associated with health.
9. Zeus, Achilles and Poseidon are all depicted with long hair.
8. Many Native Americans prized long hair in men.
7. Chinese men wore the culturally identifiable long braid down their backs (called a “queue”) beginning in the 17th century.
6. Samson.
5. Orlando Bloom, Owen Wilson, and Johnny Depp (Okay, two out of three isn't bad.)
4. Counterculture movements such as the Rastafarians and the Hippies used long hair to separate themselves from the establishment.
3. Sikh men refuse to cut their hair as one of the most important parts of their religious practice. Their hair – “kesh” - is allowed to grow naturally out of respect for what god created.
2. The hair salons all give out candy.

And although I, frankly, could go on and on, the number one reason, I shouldn't cut my son's hair...
1. He doesn't want to cut it.

menu of a 3-year-old

We all hear about kids who are picky eaters. Like, they eat raisins. Exclusively. Only with a fork. The one with the blue handle. Or, they won't touch vegetables, even the ones their mothers shape into intricate facial expressions, the green beans giving the brows that oh-so-surprised look.

So here's my little one's alimentary hang ups.

-Every day for the last two weeks at least two meals of the day have consisted of honey yogurt and apple granola.

-He does not like grilled cheese, or any kind of hot, melted cheese-like dish. When I wasn't downing Minute Rice and TV dinners as a kid, I lived on “fake pizzas” - i.e. toast with a spoonful of spaghetti sauce and a piece of cheese stuck in the broiler or toaster oven for a minute. I can barely comprehend that my child does not fancy these delicacies. Recently when serving him a modified version of same, along with carrots and cucumbers, the boy cleaned his plate of vegetables, leaving his cheesy goo untouched.

-Isaac hates muffin tops. I'm not even joking. He will only eat the bottoms of muffins and begs me to let him eat the paper too.

-I know things are getting weird now, so let me bring you back to something you can hold on to. My kid's not a total odd ball – he loves ice cream. Today, he talked me into making some via a single serving recipe from one of his National Geographic magazines. Marching around the kitchen grinning with his bowl of frozen half and half, he could hardly contain his joy, and, just to take his place in the classic scene of child with food – boy with ice cream, he promptly dropped it upside down on the floor and burst into tears.

"Sometimes a pizza is a pizza. But sometimes, a pizza is more than just a pizza."

Whenever I get down about the fact that the major part of my written opus seen by a public audience consists of articles written on bird cage liner about things like airshows or festivals honoring produce or the same freaking tired musical with references to gossip columnists from the 30s playing at no less than three different local theaters over a single season, I read the grocery store flyer and feel better.

There is a chain of grocery stores, the local version of which I frequent, that offers certain alternatives to most chain grocery stores and that publishes a monthly flyer with descriptions that rival the L.L. Bean catalogue. (I'm going on memory and reputation when I say that of course, since I haven't read an L.L. Bean catalogue, I'm happy to report, in a very long time.) It's like the edible L.L. Bean. If you could eat your polo shirt, this would be the place it was written about.

There is someone whose job it is to write three substantial paragraphs about Pecan Sticky Buns and BBQ Blue Cheese Chicken Wings. There is someone who has chosen a career in which the birthing of phrases like “Something frozen this way comes...” earns them high fives at the water cooler and commendations in the board room. There are people, people like you and me, with families and hobbies, who welcomed a new day, fought the commuter traffic, grabbed a hot mug of joe and sat down to compose “One of our favorite condiments at the moment is our Wasabi Mayonaise. We carried this product for a number of years before discontinuing it to make room for newer items. Wow, was that a mistake!”

I believe the phrase I'm looking for is “But for the grace of god...”

$4.13/gallon

There used to be a game show on in the 80s or 90s maybe, was it on MTV? I dunno. I blank out when it comes to horrible specimens of pop culture around my coming of age. On the show, friends or couples or someone had to answer questions with what they guessed their partner (who was backstage in a sound proof booth – it goes without saying) would say before the partner would bounce onto the stage for a stressful timed replay of the true answers.

The answers were one of two possibilities: Cool or not cool. Generally, contestants would yell out these phrases while the studio audience cheered or groaned. It went something like this: “Skipping underwear with a white sundress.” “Coooool!!!” “Telling your buddy that you saw his girl cheating on him.” ”NOT Cool!”

So I'm sitting in the courtyard with the other parents waiting for my kiddo to come out of preschool. One of the moms turns to tell me, “You know the kids know our cars? They know who rides in each car.”

Her massive grey elephant of a Suburban is parked just on the other side of the gate.

“Yes, I realize that,” I say.

“That's really cool! Isn't that cool?”

nurturing a nurturing nature

Isaac's closest buddy has a new little sister. Born the day before Isaac's birthday.

A month or so ago her mama brought her into Isaac's preschool class so that everyone could meet her and so his buddy could continue to process this huge new change in his world in another realm of his little life. His mama told me laughing afterwards that the girls all swamped her and the baby, while the boys, including her own and Isaac hung back and looked wholly uninterested. But I knew my guy better than that. I guessed it was more of his impressive ability at observation than his disinterest that kept him at bay that day. I'd have a chance to try out my theory.

Not long after, baby, mama, and friend were visiting us at our place. When the little one would squawk, Isaac would pause in racing from one end of the house to the other with his bud to look at us with an expression similar to what my Zappy cat would give us when Isaac cried as a newborn. It said: “The baby is in distress. What are you people going to DO about it?”

Later, pulling himself away from a game of something called – as close as I could tell – Pour Every Toy in Isaac's Room onto the Floor and then Smash the Closest Car into the Closest Animal while Wearing a Fire Hat and Screaming, Isaac appeared in the living room again where baby was mewing and mamas were chatting. He had with him an old pacifier that was still kicking around his room, despite the fact that he hasn't used one since before he turned one. He offered it up to baby's mama.

“Oh! Thank you, Isaac!” she exclaimed. “For the baby? How sweet!”

She didn't notice that when he retreated that he was still lurking just around the corner within earshot.

“But I don't think I'm going to put it in her mouth,” she finished.

“Why?!” Iz whined, reappearing, his little broken heart on his sleeve.

“Oh, uh, um...”

I stepped in. “Iz, some babies don't use pacifiers when they are so little. Maybe she can use it when she's a little older. And maybe we can make sure it's really clean so it won't have any germs to make her sick.”

Later that night, Mike, Iz and I were in Iz's room and found ourselves absently twiddling with the same pacifier while talking about the day. I informed his dad how kind Isaac had been earlier, trying to offer it to the baby. Dad cooed over the gesture. I hadn't mentioned that the baby didn't use it or what Isaac had overheard, trying just to reinforce the praise for the intention. Isaac, staring intently down at the dark blue nipple said only, “I'm going to get this thing clean. Somehow, I'm going to get it really clean.”

he has his limits

Take One:

Isaac has been creating metaphors left and right as per his poetic usual.
(his bitten toast) "Mama! It's a boat!"
(the stamen of a calla lily flower) "It has a carrot inside!"
(the water filter faucet) "Look, Mama! A letter J!"
(cheerios stuck together in stepped pattern) "It's like stairs!"

Finally, it is almost 6 o'clock and we are both waiting impatiently for Daddy to get home. I lie back on the grass in the front yard.
"Isaac, what do the clouds look like today?"
"White."

Take Two:

After a full day of cars talking to each other ("I'm a forklift. I pick up big, heavy things. Watch! Wanna come to my house?") and the wee men Isaac begs me to make with my fingers reading imaginary books to each other and watching rubber whales splash into the ocean (living room rug), and cooking strawberry shortcake soup (granola in a sauce pan on the coffee table), it's bath time.

We go looking for the pieces of Isaac's camping set to join him for bath play. It includes a little plastic man, plastic boy, tent, fire, cot, and dog. Can't find the boy. Mama grows tired of looking and eyes the clock.

"Maybe when you get in your bath, Iz, the man and the dog can talk about where the boy is. Maybe that can be part of their conversation."

My son looks at me, head lowered, eyebrows lifted. "Dogs say like 'woof-woof,' like that, Mama. Dogs can't talk."

"Right, Iz. I forgot. Sorry."