Windows Open

When you live in the NE part of this country, there is something magical about the first warmish morning of Spring when you open your windows after being shut inside with the furnace going through those long months of winter. That Spring wind blowing through the house seems to promise everything good, wildflowers, fresh corn, afternoon swims and lemonade.

In South Texas, something similar happens on the first cool morning of Fall, when we throw open the windows and peek out the screen door. That first morning when the temperature dips into the 50s and the Autumn breeze blows through promising pumpkins, stews, fresh-baked cornbread and dark red wine.

What a Difference a Year Makes

First day of 5th Grade / First day of 6th Grade

Yoga with Max

When Max announced that he wanted to come to my yoga class with me this summer I wasn't sure what to think. He had come with me a couple of times before and enjoyed it but it was sort of a novelty and I wasn't sure if he could really commit to practicing the whole summer.

The other thing that gave me pause was this: I am very new to yoga. I'm a beginner. This means that sometimes in class I am clumsy and awkward. Sometimes I look up to see that I am way off base in a pose. Sometimes I fall out of tree pose and I often make this kind of "oof" sound as I come into downward dog.

Trying something new, being a beginner at something can be hard. Allowing yourself to actually be bad at something can be hard. Doing these things in front of your kid is even harder. We talk the talk about risk and vulnerability and trying things that do not come easy all the time with Max. With yoga, it was obviously an opportunity to walk the walk.

So we are practicing yoga together this summer. We roll our mats out side by side on Tuesday mornings and it is already such an incredible gift. I have been able to share the things I struggle with and be proud of the things I've gotten better at. (You should have seen my awesome planks this morning!)

At an age where your parents can be a little embarrassing, Max is willing to be with me in the sometimes struggle, sometimes awkward of yoga class and that makes me very happy.

Happy Mothers Day

When Frank and Max started asking me what I wanted for Mothers Day, I had a hard time coming up with a suggestion. There really isn't anything I need and Sundays are busy days for us already. I really didn't feel like trying to cram a fancy lunch into our schedule and breakfast in bed is definitely not my style!

So I asked them for something that had been in short supply around here the last few weeks: an afternoon of family time, just the three of us doing something together. And that is what I got today!

After lunch, we wandered around my favorite nursery, Shades of Green. They are celebrating their anniversary so there was music and lemonade and ice cream.

I bought some new herbs for the kitchen garden and fantasized about handcrafted windchimes.

Then we played a game together which is by far one of my favorite ways to while away a Sunday afternoon even if I didn't win a single hand!

Frank is grilling hamburgers in the backyard as I write this.

I could not have asked for a better day.

I Wrote a Poem Every Day in April

So, I wrote a poem every day (except for two of the days we were caught up in the state robotics competition) in April to celebrate National Poetry Month.

In case you are new, I posted them here.

I did it because writing a poem every day is a pretty cool discipline - a good way to stretch some creative muscles that were getting a little flabby and also for this:

What you see there are the pages of rough sketches I did for the little snippets I eventually posted online. Ninety percent of those pages have writing on both sides. That, my friends, is a nice-sized pile of raw poetry material to noodle around with in the next few months. Between these notes and the bits I put online I'd be willing to bet there are several juicy poems worth of images and ideas.

I'm glad I did it. Most days, it was a lot of fun.


So, thank you for reading along. If you'd like to weigh in on what you liked best, I am always happy to have your comments.

Sometimes I Stumble Across Things

Max

Better Living through Chemistry

It's been a week of not-feeling-well for me. That pesky cold that morphed into a sinus infection lingered and the antibiotics almost made me feel worse. Then yesterday I suddenly felt better, more normal than I had felt since the whole virus/infection/antibiotic episode began.

Then, around 4am this morning, I woke up from a deep sleep with that weird something is wrong feeling. I lay there and tried to figure it out, was it my stomach? Maybe. My head? Definitely. By the time I got Max up, I suspected a migraine though I haven't had a full blown one since this summer.

After applying coffee and a little breakfast to no avail, I took Max to school.

When I got home I opened up the migraine meds I've been carrying around since this summer and took one. (They melt on your tongue and taste like mint and steel.)

And then, over the course of the next hour, (you might want to insert the sound of angels singing here) the pain just uncoiled from my head. I could still sense the headache sort of hovering but all the pain was gone. I told Frank it was like wearing a headache hat. The headache was sort of perched above my head, not inside it.

So, I spent my morning knitting and making brownies. I finished off the giant mountain of laundry. I set my iTunes library to shuffle and congratulated myself on my brilliant taste in music. And now, I'm sitting on the porch. Max and Frank are playing soccer in the yard.

I couldn't ask for a better day.

The Tempest

I picked up The Tempest today to re-read it in anticipation of seeing the new Julie Taymor film version.

Just a few pages into Act One, I was just stunned at the beauty of the language. Really, I had to put the book down and just say, "damn."

I read a lot of Shakespeare in graduate school and studied with a true Shakespeare scholar, but we ran through the plays at such breakneck speed, I never had the time to do any proper reading. I was always racing on to the next assignment.

So, I'm really enjoying the reading and looking forward to seeing the film.

Morning Light

On Saturday, Shutter Sisters got me thinking about morning light.

Media Diet

I've been on a media diet for a couple of weeks. (Thank you, Karen, for the inspiration.) No radio news, or newspapers, or tv news.

I've knocked back our newspaper subscription to Friday, Saturday and Sunday only and even then, I only read the weekend entertainment section and the food and travel pages. The rest goes straight into the recycle bin.

No television news except for the local weather forecast. No NPR news and that's been the hardest thing for me.

Here's the thing. I began to think that all the bad news (car accidents and shootings, war and war and war, floods and disasters, anything Sarah Palin might say) was weighing me down. That letting all those things into my brain was not good for my heart. So I stopped, cold turkey.

And you know what? The world continued to turn without my having to carry all that bad news around with me. Absolutely nothing in my life depended on my knowing about the latest armed robbery or three car pile up.

People still talk to me about the news. I have a pretty good grasp of what has been happening around here and in the world these last few weeks. Strangely enough, to have a human conversation about something, even if it is bad news, doesn't leave me with that heavy feeling or a knot in my stomach.

I may do away with the newspaper all together. I may go back to listening to All Things Considered while I'm cooking dinner. I'm not sure where I'll take it from here, but learning that I don't have to let everything in has been completely liberating.

Sixteen Years Ago Today

Same As It Ever Was

I was going through some of my photos on Facebook the other day when it dawned on me how utterly and completely we are a family of habit, of repetition and ritual. In nearly every photo Max is wearing the same shirt. (The casual observer might assume that the poor child has only one.) But that's his favorite shirt, the one he always wears on weekends which is when I most often pull out my camera. Another point driven home by those photos is that we do the same things over and over. We sit on the porch. We go for walks. As a family, we hang out in very predictable ways.

Frank and I have always been creatures of habit. We took flack early in our marriage from friends who were mystified at our desire to stay in on Saturday nights because we grilled on Saturdays and listened to the radio and danced around the kitchen. This tradition is ongoing, Saturday is still a night for grilling and music in our little family.

Our rituals lend a distinct shape to our days and weeks. I can count on one hand the number of nights in the past year that we did not sit down to dinner together. It is something we all value and it brings our hours spent apart to a familiar close. We each share a high and low from our day, sometimes we share a freaky moment or a musical moment instead. No matter how crazy or out of whack our individual days might get, we can count on coming back to the table and telling our stories every night.

Just like we rely on those weekend walks in that same tie-dyed t-shirt and our Saturday dinners and playlists. These are the rituals that mean family to us. It is the way we remember who we are.

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Valentine's Day: No Words

Wind Chill

The windchill this morning was eighteen degrees.

When I was living in Maine, eighteen degrees was not that big a deal. Sure everything was frozen but you just put on some layers and went on about your business. When I lived in New York, I walked to work in much much colder temps.

I still have lots of cold weather things - even though I gleefully threw hats, scarves and mittens out the window of my car during my move from Maine to Florida many years ago.

So, bundling up, like I did today feels familiar to me. It reminds me of truly happy times in my life.

Winter weather is pretty darn easy to take when it only lasts a few days.

What Mom Wants

For five years, I've wanted a stand mixer for Christmas. I have a perfectly fine hand mixer but I do a lot of baking and the Kitchen Aid stand mixer has long been calling my name.

Every year, the stand mixer is at the top of my list and I start watching for sales, comparing prices and for the last four years something has always come up at the last minute and the holiday budget begins to dwindle and I let the stand mixer go. I don't feel right spending that much money on myself when the budget starts to squeak from tightness.

This year, once again, we were faced with a budget crisis in the week before Christmas. (Dear Person Who Hacked into Itunes and Cleaned Out My Bank Account: Screw you. Very Sincerely, Laura.) This is the kind of thing that sends me into crazy tailspins of worry and lack.

But this year, I had just banded together with my mom and to be sure that my little sister got what she wanted for Christmas. This year, I know the bank will take care of the fraudulent charges and get that money back into our account. This year, I am pretty sure that denying the things I really want is not particularly healthy for my spirit.

On Facebook, I've mentioned that this is the Year of the Guitar.

But it is also the year of the stand mixer.

Tomorrow I will fire that thing up and bake my boy a birthday cake.

Sunday in the Park with Max

I am beginning to come out from under this wretched cold today and thought a walk in the park might help. It turned into more of a run in the park for Max and Frank. I followed them at a stroll, with the camera.

Why I Married the Guy

Thanks to some recent rain (praise all that is good and holy) we have a bloom of mushrooms in our front yard mulch.


Before he left for work this morning, Frank took the time to do this

so he could do this

and this

to please Max.

He's the kind of guy who does things like that.

Change of Season

The season is changing here in San Antonio. It is subtle and if you aren't paying attention you could miss it altogether.

I spent a handful of years in Maine and it left me finely tuned to the transition of one season to the next. And I do miss the long slow kiss of Fall's New England arrival.

Nothing seduces like September in Maine.

But stepping outside this morning, my pulse quickened. It was almost ten degrees cooler than last week and the air just feels different. Even Max noticed a difference as we hustled off to school.

We won't be breaking out sweaters until well into November. There are more hot days ahead but the change is coming. It is undeniably in the air. You just have to stop long enough to notice.