Refining Snow

It snowed a few weeks ago on the way to work and I wanted to write about it but have not had time till now.  Thank goodness the daily slice is back!! 

It was snowing, just sputtering flurries as I left home. By the time I was well tucked into the highway crawl, it fluttered down in buckets.  Clouds scooted so low I could have reached out my window and scooped in handfuls of ragged fluff. We crept along and then stopped completely.  Not to worry. I could see the exit to my super secret shortcut just a few yards ahead.

The shortcut wound its way along service roads. Huge tanker trucks eased their way gingerly onto the white road. Up ahead  was the turn that would bump me over the tracks and through the oil refinery, a bit smelly, but quicker than sitting in traffic. 

I made the turn and entered a wonderland.  Tall silver towers, each encased in a lattice of ladders loomed and vanished in the clouds. Every tower was lined in fairy lights. Snow flakes swirled. A hawk grew out of the mist, glided just past my windshield, and disappeared into the strange forest.

WW II was how long ago !?!

In terms of the dimension of time, says physicist Brian Cox, we are traveling at the speed of light.  I recently had a moment where time suddenly shifted for me, from present to far past.  Over the holidays we saw three movies that were set in the time of WWII: Dr. Who’s Christmas special, The King’s Speech and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  After watching the King’s Speech the kids and I went to the internet and listened to a recording of England’s King George giving the real speech that told the British people they were at war with Hitler.  Then, of course we listened to Churchill’s speech “...we will fight them on the beaches...” and a few more as they popped up on the YouTube list.  

Besides my wonder at the technology that gives my family instant access to history  I was struck by how different my children’s experiences of these speeches and stories were from mine. My experience is tied up with my parent’s stories. My dad told of leaving school and learning to fly, and how he hated the war and military life.  My mom told of waving good-bye to my grandfather as he boarded a train wearing a uniform.  She, her cousin and mother moved in with my great and great-great grandmothers in Oakland CA for the duration.  My children looked through photos of their grandmother as a child, wearing hand knit sweaters and caps, collecting scrap metal for the war effort.  No plastic was in the wagon.  The women canned everything they grew in the garden.  Organic was normal and all the apples had spots.  I still remember my great-grandmother’s wood cook stove in the kitchen and the coo-coo clock that had to be wound each night before bedtime.  No YouTube or iPods.  In my childhood WWII was an ever-present backdrop to the good life we were living “now”.  But to my children it has moved into the realm of a fairy tale.  Long, long ago and far, far away there was good and evil.  It was close, but good eventually won, and the fathers came home.  Their most visceral experience of the time is when Winston Churchill and Hitler appear in episodes of Dr. Who.  The backdrop in our house is the Vietnam War and Woodstock.  Now the Beatles hover just on the edge of reality, drifting away from humanity and into myth as they too are pulled each day into the relative time of fairyland.

Day Four - Winter Break

By the fourth day of vacation the novelty has worn off.  It snows heavily in the morning so things start out well:

“As soon as your room is picked up, you’ve brought your laundry down, you’ve emptied your bit of the dishwasher, dressed and eaten, THEN you may go out and play in the snow.”

Fresh snow is a great motivator.  Young children can be persuaded to accomplish a lot in short order for the treat of making the first marks in a new and uncharted wonderland.  One would think they were making the first footprints on the moon.

It lasts about ten minutes. Then that novelty is gone.  I have banned all electronic media till sundown.  My husband, after a traumatic early morning dental appointment, hides under covers till 4pm when the media restriction is lifted.  My oldest has barricaded herself in her room to finish college applications.  Second oldest has taken up knitting and threatens anyone who approaches her with knitting needles and a replica of Dr. Who’s sonic screwdriver.  The two younger boys are literally bouncing off the walls and reciting their favorite bits of profane standup comedy routines over and over at top volume.  

Having eaten a nutritious lunch of carmel nut clusters and fruit jellies I pile the boys into the car and go to the  rec-center.  I take a class that leaves me feeling half dead but virtuous while the boys play air hockey.  Then we all go swimming.  Playing in water, splashing each other, racing down the water slide - the stress is literally washed away. Before we go I run them around the indoor track until I can tag them from behind, just for good measure.  This takes about a quarter mile to accomplish.

We return home to the smell of vegetable soup, and I silently bless the name of the inventor of the crockpot.  Fairy lights have taken over the living room.  We light candles, the kids work a puzzle.  We eat soup and after dinner we gather round the computer to watch clips of our favorite stand up comedians on youtube.  As I tuck in the boys I hear them reciting their favorite bits and that will be funny until about 10am tomorrow.

Patterns in the Air

It's the patterns in the air.

The jugglers at the Boulder juggling club are world-class, better than I can ever hope to be, but playfully focused and welcoming. Every Sunday night our family goes to juggle. Then I catch myself at some point, standing with my back to the mirror, entranced by the activity in the room.  Patterns of balls arc up into the air and float down, caught in a waterfall.  Rings buoy up and hang just at the top, bubbles caught up in a foam. Clubs twirl and sparkle in the midst of a circle of friends.

Last week, a friend, my husband and I kept eleven clubs in the air for brief bits of time.  I reveled in the euphoria of success, the clam of deep focus and a sense of wonder. The beautiful pattern appears in the air between our hands.  White clubs, wrapped in glittering gilt, twirl and spin in a smooth dance of arcs in the space that separates us.  The pattern pops into existence for a few moments, then falls apart, like everything that ever was alive.

Digital Utopia

In the beginning was word.  In Ascii’s fancy code for on and off.  And then the word became image and there was youtube.  And there was nothing that was made with out word and the word became digitized and dwelt among us almost instantaneously everywhere at once and all (well, almost all) people beheld it.  And took it and created themselves in the image of media on facebook. And twitter. And doing stopped except for the sake of image. And image shaped doing and image grew into a world of Kodachrome perfection shaping perception and giving us a measure to value our souls by the look of our digital lives.

Recently I found myself enthusiastically telling a friend of mine about blogging.  At the risk of coming off as just another narcissist, I expounded on the benefits of blogging for a hesitant writer. She had been telling me she wanted to write more and I was encouraging her to give blogging a try.  A few weeks later I spoke with my friend again.  She had read my blog and had some fun exploring a few others as well.

            “But,” she continued, “After a while I started to feel badly because everyone’s life seems so much more exciting and together than mine is right now.”

            This from a woman who has traveled the world as a street performer and who tackles every challenge life presents her with go-getter confidence.  One who has ridden through life storms, holding on to flotsam by the skin of her teeth and lived to tell the tale!

Utopias always fall apart, abandoning truth for an image of perfection.  Truth is hard and risky to write.  Whenever I edit, I create something not quite real, often a bit more like the world I wish there was.  I’m only human. 

I hope my friend does eventually write something she’ll let me read.  It can’t help but be a gripping tale!

An October Sestina: Garden

A sestina I wrote when our youngest was five months old...

Garden

An October blue-sky golden walk in my garden

Bare feet, cooling ground, warm sun on my skin,

Snapping basil stems, overflowing armloads crush up into my face.

The scent overwhelms.  Perfect tomatoes fill my hands

With sun soaked heat.  I rub off the crust

Of honest dirt and carry all inside dreaming of olive oil

The jar is empty.  I pad down cool stairs for more oil.

The kitchen table overflows with garden

Treasure.  Visions dance – something with a golden crust

Of cheese.  On the counter dough rises in a mound smooth as baby skin.

Curving it out of the bowl, I pull and stretch.  Husband puts his hands

On my shoulders.  I brush my eye and trace my face

With flour.  I wipe my hands and turn to face

Him with a kiss.  “If you want to help sit and oil

The pans.”  So he sits and works.  I shape and stretch.  He hands

Me oiled pans.  I slip in the loaves and go back out to the garden

for the eggplant I just saw from the window, purple skin

Gleaming.  Grilled, I think, with a little parmesan, to give it a nice crust.

The kids made sugared grapes – luscious rounds coated with a crust

Of sparkling hoarfrost.  I slice warm bread, drizzle garlic butter on the face

Of each piece and set it on the table.  Husband peels the wax skin

Off the cheese. I scrub the cast iron skillet then wipe it with oil

Till it gleams.  Husband opens the door to call the kids in from the garden.

They spill in with the slanting sun.  I tell them to wash their hands.

At my chair the sleeping cradled baby’s hands

Curl open like petals.  The sunlight halos his head and a crust

Of milk has dried on his cheek.  We look ‘round the table at our garden,

Full of impatient life, the evening sun glowing on each face.

Suddenly I see I live with heedless saints who, all unknowing, pour the oil

Of their spirits over my rough heart and salve my chaffed skin.

I take out the garbage and freezing rain pierces my shocked skin.

Husband clears the dishes while upstairs I fill my hands

With washrag and soapy child.  Husband creeps up and daubs my neck with bath oil.

Inside we thickly mulch each child with blankets, outside ice forms a crust

On muddy puddles.  In the warm bed Husband’s beard tickles my face.

Ice rain scatters and pebbles against the window.  I dream of the garden.

In my dream a new garden breaks through the crust

Of a bare earth.  Fresh oil like sunlight drenches my skin

And I lay the curves of my face in warm and tender hands

Rated AAA Risk Free

It is Wednesday and I am going to write for 15 minutes. . . I had thoughts in the car, listening on the radio. Yes, today I am going to do it.  Sit down and write. I am.

My dear husband has Wednesday afternoons handled.  He picks up all four of our offspring from their respective institutions of learning and trundles them all off to circus arts classes at the Boulder Circus Center. Then he feeds them junky American fast food on the way home (if I were a good mother I would pack them a nutritious dinner the night before and leave it in the fridge…but…sigh).  I guess the exercise offsets the fried chicken sandwiches.

So back to my point, Wednesdays I can write.  I will come home, sit down and write.  I had thoughts -  in the car - listening to the radio.  Two bright young women were talking about the European Debit Crisis and I was feeling October 2008 déjà vu all over again.  So I will write. 

I walk in the door and I see that my blessed husband has cleaned the kitchen and folded last night’s laundry.  Still, my house starts screaming at me: another load of laundry! Sort through that box of stuff! Bake a few of those little somethings so you won’t be tempted to buy them at the coffee shop tomorrow! You’ve not watered those plants in a while! The bathrooms could use some attention! For the love of God woman – CLEAN SOMETHING!

But TODAY I WILL WRITE!  I had thoughts of my own, about risk, in the car.  The two women were talking about how ratings of AAA were taken to be essentially without risk and that this is the second time this has happened recently.  The mortgage backed securities were rated AAA, so were treasuries issued by Italy and Greece – AAA – risk free.  Yet…

I put a load in the washer, mix up a yeast dough and let it stand in the warm oven and run upstairs to write while the washer runs the first cycle and the bread rises.  My husband and the children will be home soon.  Nothing is without risk.  They could get hit in the head with juggling clubs, fall off their unicycles or eat tainted chicken and cantaloupe.  The washer could leak, the bread could fail to rise, a meteor could crash into the planet and send us all reeling into a dystopic nightmare.  As I kneed the bread I spin out possible futures: Greece and Germany dance in a mirror, reversing roles in 1919 demands for reparations from the Great War.  Europe deftly shoots itself in the foot, again.

The garage door opens and my family is home:

“Mom! Mom! I was juggling on a unicycle and I was swinging the poi but the they collided and then I dropped them and I fell off but I’m all right then I went on the bola-bola and tried the diablo but the string was too short so I could just toss it but I didn’t quite catch it.  I did do a pinwheel though! Two of us on unicycles held hands and went around in a circle and Quarto (the youngest, who is eight) was riding on the teacher’s shoulders!”

Nothing is risk free.

Just ask Dr. Who