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January 31, 2006
Checking in
It's hard finding morning time for morning pages. I resolved to do them at night, after the boys went to bed. This made sense because that is when my personal day begins. They were tedious to write in their entirety; I found myself consistently checking my watch at twenty minutes. Maybe twenty minutes would be a more ideal measure of time for me? When I have a 3 hour workday, I'm anxious to get work done, so I have to remind myself that morning pages are indirect work. And the pages, they worked to an extent, but this week has been emotionally-charged and turbulent. Both boys have been sick and Damon pulled a muscle in his back on Friday. Added deadlines and housework have commandeered my time and attention.
I was surprised to find myself writing repeatedly about feeling the need to take the family out of the house for a year. I have strong wanderlust, and I always have, but it feels particularly strong right now. Still, it won't happen anytime soon, it's too expensive and I'd prefer living on a boat, which we can't do (even if it were affordable) until Chas is out of diapers. Imagine that! (Although I know it's possible --there's a link out there somewhere I saw once, a photograph of fifteen-odd cloth diapers hung to dry on the mast of a docked sailboat. So inspiring!)
I did the artists date several times this week, a total drug in itself. I have a new travel set of watercolors that fits nicely between diapers and toys in my bag. And a new moleskine notebook, this one with graph paper, that I may begin doing morning collages. In the evening.
What suprised me most this week? Realizing just how important it is to PLAY. Something I thought just might make a little difference apparently makes a BIG difference. I have been trying to remember what I enjoyed doing most as a child:
1. going exploring through the neighborhood, catching reptiles and bugs.
2. drawing. a lot.
3. interviewing my stuffed animals, recording the interview on a portable tape recorder.
4. collecting rocks.
5. watching horses, trying to be with them
6. gardening.
7. taking care of wounded animals.
8. roaming the vet school stalls at TAMU after kindergarten.
9. drawing. a lot.
10. reading. a lot.
11. hanging out in my room
It gave me hints. I realized why I enjoyed being a student in dental school (being bookish, being in a santitized building, feeling important to other people). Why I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was little (and being reprimanded by my grandparents, since it didn't afford the salary of a medical doctor), why I will always want to be around horses and livestock, and farm, and garden. Read. Explore. I enjoyed reconnecting with my young self through this exercise. It gave me direction for the future (I'm on the right track for now, I think).
I want to read how the rest of the AW bloggers are doing but, oh well, there's no reading this week. I'm being forced into ignorance. Can't say it's my fault this time.
Posted by Steph at 02:12 AM | Comments (4)
January 28, 2006
Illustration Friday: Cats
See more: Illustration Friday
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January 27, 2006
Pacifier
A roll of drafting paper. $8. Bought me ten minutes of time to post the previous entry.
Posted by Steph at 03:31 PM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2006
Corners of My Home
This is the newly added little nature corner, a submission for Amanda's Corners of My Home. I am participating so that I'll be encouraged to dust and declutter the corners of my home. Actually, this little corner has a little collection of scrambled egg bits under the table that you can't see in this picture. With clever photography, I was able to conceal it. See? I'm so smart.
Really, though, I don't think anything can force me to dust and declutter. I was kidding about that. There will be much chaos.
This little nature corner is evolving from a plain white table that was originally intended to be a Little Art Corner. This was before I realized that my boys don't do art in a little corner, just as they prefer not to pee simply in a toilet; they do it all over: even on the Bella rug. That poor rug.
The table is quickly growing into a little laboratory: here we have blooming shallots, pinto bean sprouts, what used to be a flowering cactus (I need to rotate that out already), a fickle pitcher plant (with button!) and a bowl of fruit that Ford just placed there.
I have big dreams for this little corner. I'm looking for a long but tall aquarium tank for a local stream fauna population (kind of a mini Bull Creek, which is along the hike we take so frequently), a microscope, and a little shelf beside the table for all of our nature books--as if they would all stay on a bookshelf! On the wall: seasonal art. Small shelf for gear: binoculars for a quick peek at the white wing dove, jars for looking at specimens, plant press.
I've enjoyed seeing other corners. Go ahead, take a peek!
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Concentration
A perfect fit into this week's theme for Studio Friday: "PLAYTIME." Even if it's posted prematurely.
Posted by Steph at 12:23 PM | Comments (12)
January 24, 2006
SPT
When I was four.
I remember playing with my dad's Koh-I-Noor Rapidographs until the points broke off, and pulling bit after sticky bit off his gum erasers. But I never came across his crow quill pens. Where did he hide them, as a medical illustrator?
Ford, also four, loves to dig through and (accidentally) destroy my art supplies, crow quills included. He uses them as wands. I've found sewing machine pressure feet discarded on the floor after being used as rocketships, bobbins (previously used as Ty-fighters) under sofas. I never manage to keep it all concealed.
Posted by Steph at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)
Living in Austin with Children
On a Japanese prayer wall, one anonymous child wrote:
Posted by Steph at 07:28 AM | Comments (3)
It rained. It rained all day, beginning with bright flashes at midnight and ending with a shroud of mist on Sunday. This afternoon, two days after the relieving episode, the grass is still moist. Is our burn ban over? Hopefully not; this morning Ford and Chas followed me outside to the garden, where they leaned over to watch me burn the raffia and summer grass that decorated the rim of Bird's fishbowl. Quickly, the straw crackled into embers, and died into crumbly strings that we blew into the rosemary, which was still dewey. Before lunch, we had bought a new betta; the new one is named Angie and he is a vigorous red. Funny, I never thought to photograph the morning.
Ford got a new bike on Sunday. Electric blue, like mine, it inspired him to go very fast. We took him to the veloway, where we could ride and skate beside him for three and a half miles. Around the third quarter, his energy began to wane, and after Ford's excessive whining, Damon reluctantly carried the squat little bike the rest of the way, while I taxied him in the bike trailer. We continued to loop for another half hour, during which I thought about my own famous fallouts. Like the time I showed up for team practice on the first day, claiming I was an intermediate rider, and spent the rest of the evening correcting myself on an overly large, very young thoroughbred who felt like a Ferrari on wet pavement. Although I didn't quit, I did nearly shit in my pants and I definitely didn't make Intermediate.
Yesterday, we took the boys to the Children's Museum, where I found this:
With the grasses outside, glorious from Fall but wet from the rain, I thought we'd make a bunch of these for a wall parade. It didn't happen today, so we'll try doing this tomorrow. It may even be a good idea to use them for Christmas tree ornaments next year? I want a whole herd of them...
Posted by Steph at 06:56 AM | Comments (0)
DJ Ford at the Westbank this Tuesday, no cover
I am sitting atop a five year-old blue area rug as the timid, gangly librarian greets us with her friend, the fifty year-old once-purple spider puppet. Her eyes are so tiny that I find myself searching for the person beneath them, and out it peeks with a nervous giggle as she shifts her weight in the chair. Awkwardly, I encourage Chas to sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider; it's surreal to be repeating this same archaic fingerplay with my children. I'm tired of this, and I'll not reminisce about this moment when I am sixty-four. The Itsy Bitsy Spider has hung around the waterspout way too long, it needs a new venue, to broaden its horizons. I suggest setting sail for the Spanish riviera.
Ford is being patient as I tolerate the spider song. He understands the pain; I think he feels it himself. He tumbles in breakdance acrobatics around the three other mother-child pairs, threatening their two year-oldness with his four year-old rebellion. One mother flinches as Ford jumps in her face. What is he doing?! But wait! This is his method, and it's difficult being completely objective when reacting so easy. But I call him closer. He jumps back in my direction, clearly to tell me off, and I find myself flinching.
"These songs are not my kind of songs. My kind of songs are...," his straw-colored curls bounce and his eyes flare, "the White Stripes, and the Strokes, and Beck, and Kings of Leon....,"
Blood flushes to my face, and I find relief when I realize these mothers probably have never heard of Kings of Leon, much less trained their ears to understand the slurred lyrics (not that Ford has),
"...this music is na-nee na-nee BOH-ring..."
Posted by Steph at 12:00 AM | Comments (2)
January 22, 2006
Naptime
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January 21, 2006
The Veloway
My thighs, burning holes through my pants, heave as I haul the combined weight of two kids in the bike trailer and Damon, freeloading off his skateboard behind me. He coasts back there like some urban remora, silently clinging to the back of the bike trailer from his longboard, while Ford yells, "Hurry up, taxi! Mommy the wedgie-taxi! Wedgie, poopy taxi, HA!"
"HEEeeYA! MULE," echoes Damon, like some 6 foot 2 Yosemite Sam that he is.
Posted by Steph at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
Wee Hour Banter: Remembering to See
Writing is hard, but joy comes easily these days. I am rehashing my way through The Artist’s Way* again after a 6 year hiatus, and digging new roots in fertile soil. I’ve been drifting about for a while, tendrils outstretched, and feel ready now to grow down instead of laterally; the plant is strong but the roots are weak.
I’ve put my mind to naming the sources of joy and I’ve found that it comes from being aware of my footsteps and playing a lot. There may be events unfolding around me, but they may as well not be there when I am engaged. Being aware, I’ve found over the years, is what has given me fullness and sanity. Oddly, I ran across a passage in week 2 of The Artists Way that refers to this same phenomenon: Julia Cameron, in describing how her grandmother “made do” with the circumstances her husband left her (financial instability and a wild ride on the waves of success and failure), remarked about her mother’s capacity to be very much in the now, a reporter of life around her. Not focusing on regrets or fearing the future, she was able to immerse herself in experience, a great way to cope and remain sane.
"Attention is the act of connection," says Julia. "My grandmother knew what a painful life had taught her: success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of laying attention."
How do other people stay sane? Here are a few obvious secrets:
I watched a documentary last night on a female stunt pilot, who enjoyed the way flying dangerously required so much focus that everything else slipped out of her periphery. Surely a big wave surfer feels the same way, risking his life each wave as he directs every neuron to the dynamic matter and energy thundering around him. I imagine a surgeon feels a similar zen, perhaps a more cerebral, fine-motor adaptation of the same principal, or a writer, for that matter (although, as Robert Cormier once said, “The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.”).
Another way I find sanity: watching my enthusiasm of the outdoors trickle down to my kids, watching them web together information on the world around them, making connections that, in turn, connect them to earth. When I am outside appreciating the world around me, it’s infectous; I can’t help sharing it with the kids, with others. It hasn’t taken many brainstorming sessions to discover purpose behind this. I want others to see. I want others to experience and feel joy in his or her footsteps, trying to banish regrets and ignore to-do lists, even if for five mintes at a time. Little bursts of sanity provide hours of empowerment.
I think of other writers who have fostered this capacity for seeing: Annie Dillard, when she wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Anne Lammott and Operating Instructions, Rachel Carson, and the late Provensens, who wrote my favorite picture book as a child: Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. There are others, but these are favorites. What are yours? Have you seen much lately? Assuming that, like me, you feel periodic insanity, what centers you and makes you sane?
*Other Artist's Way bloggers have been inspired by Kat's Paws. I guess I can consider myself one if I just said "others."
Posted by Steph at 11:17 PM | Comments (1)
Happy Distractions From the Act of Writing
I enjoyed making this doll for Chas, who was referring to it as "Dee Dee" before dismissing it to the floor and moving on to deconstructing an old Blackberry device. Ford has since grown attached to it. I myself have been carrying it around the house also, and when I'm least aware I find myself twirling the little cap between my fingers and daydreaming about making more for the new babies in 2006 (what do you think, Elisa? A sophisticated pink velour for Claire? :)
If you ask Ford what he wants to be when he grows up, these days he will enthusiastically tell you that he wants to be "a daddy." If you could see him escorting Chas through the line at the burrito shop, or sharing his cereal with him in the back seat of the car, or hear him translate Chas' babble when I'm most desperately trying to understand what he's saying, his choice would make perfect sense. Ford is very sensitive to human expressions and needs, and he loves to help and to understand how people work. I think he'll be an outstanding dad someday. If I could only get him to remember to feed the Betta. Too late! Bird died yesterday, but it wasn't starvation. I was tending to that. He had some sort of growth that prompted me to warn Ford (yesterday! whew) that the fish may not live the rest of the week. Bye, Bird. Thanks for contributing 4 months of exotic flare to our dining room, and for freaking out about the Le Creuset Flameware (it was just a pot!) We will miss you.
Posted by Steph at 09:11 PM | Comments (2)
January 20, 2006
Ben & Jerry
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January 17, 2006
Today I was loaded with anxiety, but my soul was too weary, so what happened was that I stood there in the middle of the house while my head ran around the living room without me. It was really weird. I remember going to the refrigerator several times to meet a wasted, irritable odor. But I didn’t have the discipline to clean it, desperate as my fridge was for a good cleaning. Instead, I concerned myself with keeping Chas out of the kitchen and hoping that Ford wouldn’t look back into his childhood, later on, to discover that his first memory was peeking into a rancid icebox. I thought of solutions to the problem, and none of them were to clean the fridge. The best idea I had was to ignore it another day.
Chas likes Harry Potter, not snuggling up in bed to read a copy of the book but sitting on the edge of the bed watching the movie on Ford's laptop. If I deny his first request, he will continue bobbing up and down uttering "Pottah?" Pottah? Pottah?" until either I give in or he breaks down in a holy shitfit. I blame Ford, who is entirely too influential. Chas will sit, transfixed before the screen, for ten minutes at a time. It's creepy. I know it's not porn, but this bothers me fundamentally. Books have a lot of competition for his attention. At the same time, I can't help chuckle; "BOMBAZAH!" is a very interesting first phrase.
Where I lack the inspiration to wipe diluted bleach solution onto refrigerator shelves, I certainly haven't lacked it in the creative department. And I have Ford as my witness; I found myself telling him earlier this week that 2006 was the year I would be rejected by a lot of publishing companies, but that I'd have dummy (picture) books flying in all different directions, nonetheless. Experience has shown that nothing is final until I've confessed it to Ford. Of course, I had to explain the definition of a "dummy book" to Ford, a rather simple process made difficult and I don't think he ever got over the derogatory connotation.
Posted by Steph at 06:20 PM | Comments (4)
January 16, 2006
Saturday
Posted by Steph at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
Defiance
I just walked downstairs and caught Ford dipping his grubby little fingers into the cake batter. Notice that he doesn't look spooked or guilty. He's not trying to hide a thing.
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January 15, 2006
Happy Birthday, Damon!
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January 14, 2006
Saturday Morning pileup
I’m stuck in a Saturday sandwich, between competing layers of Close Encounters (with commentary from Damon) upstairs and Ira Glass downstairs, under the leaden weight of a sleeping Chas on my lap and the beaming sun on my shoulders. There are pressing obsessions on my laptop: a map of museums and our morning itenerary that’s now past due. But the house is now clean, and the smell of freshly sliced limes is creeping across the kitchen countertop.
Posted by Steph at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
Visions of Swallowtails dancing in my head
I cut my finger pruning today, I was so eagerly (and glovelessly!) trimming the garden in the front yard and it was especially dangerous with Chas underfoot. Nothing serious, just a battle scar, a merit badge for my work. It felt invigorating to trim the seeded grasses and the long, thin dead stalks off the perennials; not unlike the liberation I feel whenever I have a thorough haircut and bound out of the salon, leaving piles of medium blonde locks on the floor behind me staring up at the ceiling like fish beached after a red tide.
I was surprised to find tiny green veins thriving inside much of last summer’s dried stalks. Seeing this as I explored each plant gave me all the hope I needed to dream of starting another garden this Spring with the kids. I thought of the new book I bought myself for Christmas, still waiting for me to put it to use: Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy. Not for lack of inspiration, I bought the book to validate my eccentric enthusiasm about growing gnome-infested theme gardens and cultivating what land we’ve got to best use. Thinking of ideas, I took all the clippings and reduced them further, sprinkling them over the soil like little golden confetti.
While I dream of having another vegetable garden, we don’t have the means to create a large plot. We haven’t enough graded, sunshine-filled yard or protection from the deer and we sure don’t have the backhoe we’d need to cultivate a righteous bed atop the kaliche. But we have the perfect woods for little surprises, and a corridor between the house and the forest for a fragrant moonlight garden path (we had a resident bat last year). There’s room for a teepee, and I already purchased the heavenly blue morning glories for the tarp, and Mexican Sunflowers to play off the blue and create a haven for swallowtails. In fact, I am thinking of planting the entire meadow beside the driveway in a swath of yellows and white, a sort of homecoming parade.
As far as our land goes (where we are building, down the road), I still have to research rainwater harvesting, although I’ve been putting this off knowing full well that I’ll need a couple thousand to build a cistern, irrigation system and fence. Thinking ahead to another long hot summer, shopping for new fridge easily trumps those plans.
Posted by Steph at 04:41 PM | Comments (2)
January 12, 2006
Astro
What more can I say? The kid just rocks. And he's got it all figured out.
Posted by Steph at 03:49 PM | Comments (5)
January 11, 2006
Butterflies in the Treetops
A giant live oak tree stood in arabesque on the hill above the creek, a proud centenarian but with arms so long and weary they dug back down into the earth for relief. While the sun sank behind it without saying goodbye, as it does on these arid, cloudless days, Ford and Chas cavorted among the branches. Ford wanted to climb higher than possible, satisfying each inch up the tree with laughter and a hearty jump back down. Chas, for his part, interested himself mostly with the mulch around the base, a dusty combination of dead leaves, acorn bits, bird guano and the small particulates of decomposing plastic gelato spoons from the chi chi grocery store nearby. I cringed as he faced the wind, gleamed with joy and flung a handful of detritus into his face by accident. Mycoplasma, Avian flu, corneal scratches buzzing through my head while Ford demanded "Look at me now, Mommy! Look, Mommy! Mommy, look at me!" I quickly scan Chas, while Ford hops back down to the ground.
No harm done, no tears. Ford looks back up at the heart of the tree, a perfect vortex of boughs and tailored for sitting, tempered and rounded from a century of children. He turns to me with raised eyebrows, and asks me to lift him up to the top. I remind him of my jammed thumb, my short height, and promise that Daddy can help him up next time. A couple walks by, the man understands Ford's gesturing without hearing a word. I tell Ford that I approve, the man can help lift him up to the top of the trunk. As the man lifts him, I watch every ounce of Ford's enthusiasm diminish instantly in proportion to height. Tenatively, the man releases his hold on Ford, and enables him feel his presence atop the grand oak, above our heads. Perched so high, he claws that trunk like a castaway cat riding dark seas. While his eyes help round out the terror, his voice says it all, as he quivers his shaky plea,
"mommy can you please get me down?"
Posted by Steph at 08:07 AM | Comments (2)
January 10, 2006
Fun Fridays
Friday at Bull Creek. Cattails.
Scientists.
Philosopher.
Thrill seeker. (Fording the frigid stream in mocassins)
Considering Botox.
Posted by Steph at 11:36 AM | Comments (4)
SPT
Week 2 in Personal History series.
Is there a child that isn't immediately enchanted with her first visit to the beach?
I have this fantasy that I will live another life that I can completely devote to the study of echinoderms.
More SPT bloggers here.
Posted by Steph at 11:12 AM | Comments (8)
January 05, 2006
'dee dee' in progress
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The Work of Toddlerhood
Two to twenty seconds is all I have, at each chance, to capture a slice of toddlerhood on paper. I grab one of their washable markers and chubby brushes off the lawn and just go at it. He is distracted by the sprinkler system, I am distracted from the endless cleanup that follows him. Mutual satisfaction. Alas, only two gestures and he's clawing at my brush, pen and paper; his own isn't good enough.
Posted by Steph at 07:00 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2006
SPT Personal History Series #1
I have loved horses since I was four. Our vegetable garden backed up to a small pasture, and a paint named Skip Bug would stretch his neck over barbed wire to eat our corn. After school, there were days when I learned patience, by standing at the fence, waiting for the girl to finish riding practice; she would often let me ride atop Skip Bug as she walked him in circles, during his cool-down. My lofty perspective gave me certain power, and I felt great pride as I looked over the garden each time we passed, above the tall stalks of corn, with the sun setting behind our roof.
When I was in college, I took a job waiting tables so that I could buy a horse of my own. I learned what it means to own a horse. In the morning I'd drive in darkness to feed the horses, through patches of mist on the farm roads. The grain smelled like molasses and I would sit in the hay loft and finish homework, while listening to the soft munching below, interrupted occasionally by the hens, clucking about the stalls.
When we moved to California, Damon bought me my first dressage horse. From this horse I learned to fear injury and to prioritize my goals. He threw me one morning and I broke my pelvis, but I healed and I kept riding. Within a month, however, I was pregnant with Ford. So I went back to the basics of ownership, enjoying the simple things like sunny showers under the eucalyptus trees, and once again I practiced the art of letting go.
I have two saddles; one here at my parent's house in Houston and the other in our garage. They wait with me for the opportunity to ride again, meanwhile enjoying piggyback rides with the kids and basking in the sunny hope that it might indeed again happen.
More self portraits here.
Posted by Steph at 10:03 PM | Comments (2)
Basquiat
We took the kids to see the Basquiat exhibit at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Ford validated my anticipation, eagerly counting recurring symbols and remarking that "he uses crayons!" I knew the portfolio would captivate Ford, with the cartoony anatomy and cars and expressive style. But I didn't realize how much it would synchronize with Ford's interests. And I enjoyed it, too! Even if I couldn't really stop and breathe much throughout the show. Our tour was characteristically whirlwinded; we bounced around the gallery, cross-referencing to find the ties that bind the work, punctuated with requests to go to the bathroom, get a drink, go home, no stay, go to Austin. Chas, for his part, snoozed in the stroller.
Posted by Steph at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2006
2006
It's New Year's Eve in Houston, and over the buzzy drone of Chas' snoring I hear little groups of people hollering one block away, the rat a tatting of firecrackers and guns, and the horn of a freight train downtown. Our house and much of our block is asleep. But if you walk barefoot out onto the front porch, and sit on the swing, you can see Christmas lights smiling at the raucous din of nearby celebration. The turning of a new year unfolds as I swing back and forth in the stillness. The family of gliding squirrels is probably shaking on one of the grand oak boughs above me as bottle rockets whine above them.
Being a homebody on New Year's eve never felt so luxurious. I think I got over being homebound on New Year's eve four years ago when we made Ford.
Cheers to that and a new year!
Posted by Steph at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)