Monday, October 31, 2011

10 Bits of Magic



Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. A book and hot coffee
2. Rose-colored mums
3. Frost-glittered grass
4. Marble sky
5. Leaf skeletons
6. Smell of wood smoke
7. Sliver of moon
8. Roasted marshmallows
9. Quiet
10. Down comforter

What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've seen recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Friday, October 28, 2011

Night


When I was four I spent a night alone in the hospital in an oxygen tent. I remember very clearly the pink plastic butterfly attached to the I.V. in my arm, the way it rested on top of the white tape the nurse had wrapped carefully over the needle. I remember the view from my bed, walled off by clear vinyl, and wondering what I was supposed to do when I had to go to the bathroom. I remember, too, patiently explaining to somebody (a nurse?) that no, I wasn’t having trouble sleeping, I simply slept with my eyes open. What else could be the explanation? All I ever remembered from the night before was lying in bed, eyes wide open, waiting to fall asleep. Something told me this was a strange explanation, though, because I also remember pretending to be asleep every time somebody walked past my partly-opened door. Open-eyed sleeping would be hard for most people to understand.

*          *          *

There is a certain clarity to the hours I’ve spent awake at night. The moments that stand out are dream-like; an understandable thing considering their close proximity to sleep. They carry the understanding and detachment of dreams. The vividness, too. They are marked by the darkness and quiet that surround them, framed by solitude.

*          *          *

Another hospital bed, in the middle of the night, holding a newborn who looks up at me with eyes that are impossibly dark, alert and wise and deep.

Huddled in bed between my parents after a bad dream, safe only here, under these covers, no matter how cramped or hot it is. My own bed is cold and dangerous.

Leaning over the crib railing, dizzy with exhaustion, stroking silky-fine hair and singing, praying that each of us would soon find sleep.

Sitting on the couch in the living room in the middle of the night, knitting a scarf for my mom. There is nothing else I can do, nowhere else I can attach my mind or heart. The tiny new flicker of life inside of me has turned to ash, and everything else threatens to come unbound and drain out of me along with it.

A dorm room late at night, and lots of reading left to do. The satisfaction of underlining things I want to remember is palpable. So, too, is the feeling that my mind is changing shape, making room for new ideas, stretching itself wide as a single phrase pulls everything into focus.

Farther back, in high school, finishing an art project. Realizing that this—the process of creating something—is the one thing that can keep me happily awake all night, fully absorbed.

Lying in bed and unable to sleep because of a first kiss...my first night alone at college...an argument with my mom...the night before my wedding.

Standing in the hallway listening to the rhythms of three sleeping children, feeling that as much as I love them I have once again failed them completely.

A cabin in northern Minnesota the summer before my 11th birthday. My first time at overnight camp, and the two weeks have covered a lifetime. A younger girl is crying because she is homesick, and I let her sleep next to me for comfort. I miss my own parents fiercely.


*          *          *


I’ve always considered myself a morning person. I like to be up early, and even though I enjoy sleeping in sometimes, I get restless if I stay in bed too long. Daylight is what feels real; I wear it as naturally as my own skin. But these moments at night give off their own light. In the darkness, when everything around me is still, the things I fear and the things I love are illuminated, and everything shifts into focus.

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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

One Pilgrim to Another

How often do you hear yourself saying something instructive to a child, only to wonder who the words were really meant for?

My favorite this week:

Honey, writing the words “Cowgirl Shirt” on it with a crayon will not make it a cowgirl shirt.

I think I’ll be chewing on that one for a while.

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Monday, October 24, 2011

10 Bits of Magic

Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1.


2.



3.



4.


5.


6. 


7.


 
8.



9.


 
10.


What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've seen recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Power of Community



It's not about turning out prodigies or wunderkinds. It's not about living vicariously through your children. It's not even about playing violin (or piano, or harp, or flute, or cello, or guitar, or viola, or bass.) It's about how we raise our children, it's about community, it's about truth and beauty and excellence and nobility.

The older I get, the more I realize that this was a crucial element of my childhood, and it influences in more ways than I can count what I am working to do with my own children and with my students:

http://suzukiassociation.org/giving/community/

Monday was the 113th anniversary of Shinichi Suzuki's birth. This week the Suzuki Association of the Americas is working to get the word out about his vision, as well as raise funds for their continuing work. To learn more about the SAA, please follow this link.

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Monday, October 17, 2011

10 Bits of Magic


Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. E –A – D – G (same as a violin)
2. Admitting it would be fun
3. A birthday surprise
4. Trying
5. In spite of feeling silly
6. In spite of feeling awkward
7. Sore fingers
8. Delicate, crystal sound
9. Finding stolen moments to practice
10. Developing a new voice

What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've seen recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Saturday, October 15, 2011

One Friday Morning



This schedule is becoming part of us—life all mixed up, one thing blending into another, seams overlapping, as we all work to grow, expand outward, learn to love a little better.

Friday runs are complicated by Oldest’s newest activity. The boy with the habit of breaking into song has finally stopped claiming he hates to sing and joined the before-school choir. He loves it. And because I can’t manage to get up earlier, I’ve worked my run around his schedule: wake up Oldest, make sure he gets out of bed. Run two miles while he gets dressed and starts breakfast. Return home, wake up the girls, drive Oldest to the school. Park. Oldest goes inside for choir, I run twice around the path that circles the local schools, and we meet up back at the car to go home again.

Running this morning, I realize the sunrise is a friend I’ve come to count on. The thought that in a few weeks the time change will leave my entire run in the dark is a little daunting. The discouraging lines that run through my head some days (“But can she keep up the pace? Does she have the endurance?”) are challenged by the fact that I have recently worked myself up to running five miles most mornings. If I can build up my physical endurance, I have hope for my emotional and spiritual endurance, as well. The emotional meaning to the physical discipline is not lost on me. I feel strong these days, and—nice bonus—my rear is smaller. I will simply have to run in the dark, brace for the cold, find warmer clothes. Quitting isn’t an option this time.

On our way to the school, Oldest is full of plans for selling magazine subscriptions and cookie dough—fund-raisers for band and choir. This is a new concept for him, and he is enthusiastic. In fact, we have added a lot of new experiences this fall, and his enthusiasm for it all is amazing to see. He is flourishing. I drop him off at the door, park the car, and finish my run.

A fifty- or sixty-something gentleman coming towards me on the path smiles and tells me I’m in great shape—keep it up. When we pass each other again on the opposite side of the circle, he asks how many times I’m going around. I hold up my fingers, say “twice,” and he grins. “Wow! You’re doing great!” I’ve never been a particularly strong or fast runner, but I eat up the encouragement. I feel strong, healthy, maybe even almost fast.

I am determined to keep running because I want to be stronger, yes. Also because while I may argue with you that middle-aged is whatever age my parents are, (hasn’t it always been that way?) it’s hard to escape the fact that in less than a year my 30s will be behind me completely. I remember being a little puzzled that my grandma would say she felt the same as she did when she was 25, or that she always referred to her friends as “girls.” Shouldn’t you, after all, be comfortable referring to your peers as “women” by the time you were in your 80s or 90s? But it is becoming ever clearer to me how these things could be. I, too, feel like I could still be somewhere in my 20s. And I am always a little dismayed when college-age men call me “Ma’am.” I may be getting older, but I am determined to fight feeling old.

I am almost finished with my run when I see a crowd of people on the sidewalk ahead of me. I had noticed them gathering at the park down the street my first time around, but now they are walking past the high school—adults with children—some in strollers, a few weaving through the group on bikes. It occurs to me that maybe I know what this is, and the chills that go through my body are hard to manage while running.

One week ago, on another lovely Friday, an 11 year-old boy was found in the woods nearby, apparently dead by his own hand. I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that these people are walking in his memory, showing their love and grief. I see nothing in the news about this later, hear nothing in the community. But the possibility is there.

There are other reasons I run, too. The reasons I don’t talk about. There are days when I am running to throw off the frustration and anger that sometimes want to overwhelm me. To release those feelings that come up from dark, hidden places and show themselves in the light of day. “How could somebody do something like that?” people say sometimes, when they hear a particularly terrible news story. I always wonder, “Do they really not know?”

I look towards the parking lot, and there is Oldest, my own precious 11 year-old boy, leaning out the drivers’ side door, a flash of bright blue waving at me. I cut towards him across the lawn, leaving the sidewalk to the walkers. I don’t want to pass them, I don’t want to turn away, but giving them space seems appropriate. Besides, Oldest is waiting for me to take him home. I try to imagine him feeling the kind of pain the other 11 year-old boy felt, and I am in tears by the time I get to the car.

When he was a preschooler and getting braver about venturing out away from me, I always tried to make sure Oldest was wearing a brightly-colored shirt when we went to the playground. I was so worried about losing him. Perhaps the bright color—orange or yellow or blue, usually—would help me keep track of him while he played, make it harder for him to wander too far away from me.

My back is to the walkers now. They look so normal, the children all moving just the way you would expect children to move when they are going for a walk outside with their parents. Oldest has been singing for half an hour, and he is still full of music. He asks why I am crying. He is oblivious, I think, to the kind of pain that makes a person feel like they have no options left. But I don’t know if it will always be that way. I struggle to explain how I can hurt for a stranger simply because he hurt, or how I can feel tied to him because he is the same age as my own son. Does he know how terrified I have felt at losing him, even months before he was born? He is solemn for a moment. He is a compassionate being, a deep-feeling soul, but this is a little beyond him. That’s probably a good thing, I think. 11 years old should be too young to understand some of these things.


                                                 “Come away, O human child!
                                                 To the waters and the wild
                                                 With a faery, hand in hand,
                                                 For the world’s more full of weeping than you
                                                          can understand.”
                                                      
                                                                  From “The Stolen Child,” by William Butler Yeats

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Free Music and a Challenge

This isn’t new, but it’s new to me, and definitely worth checking out: violinist Tasmin Little’s free download (with sleeve inserts you can print out for the CD case, even) and her Three Step Challenge (listen to her spoken introduction to each work, listen to the music, and then attend a concert, buy a CD or write to her and tell her why you can’t/won’t do either.) Click here.

The CD is called “The Naked Violin” and consists of three works for unaccompanied violin: Partita No. 3 in E Major by J. S. Bach, Luslawice Variations Op. 50 by Paul Patterson, and Sonata No. 3 in D minor “Ballade” by Eugène Ysaÿe. A chance to hear and respond to some beautiful music. Do take the time to listen, kids and adults, alike.

Monday, October 10, 2011

10 Bits of Magic



Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. Sudden shower of leaves
2. Deep blue sky
3. Tang of dry leaves
4. Woods lit gold
5. The crackle underfoot
6. Flashes of red
7. Seed-head silhouettes
8. Swaths of bronze grass
9. Tree-branch lace
10. Moments of utter quiet

What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've seen recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Refrigerator-climbing and Other Noble Pursuits



“Does this music make you want to dance?” I felt like dancing, and Youngest was hopping around restlessly nearby while I made lunch. “No, it makes me want to climb up the refrigerator,” she answered.

At first I took this as a perfect illustration of the great difference between us, the introverted play-it-safe mom and the extraverted wild child. But maybe not. The more I think about it, the more it strikes me that maybe it was a better illustration of a shared personality trait.

When I go to a museum, I return home with itching fingers and a head full of the things I want to make. When I read an amazing book, I want to respond in kind—to capture thoughts, feelings, moments, maybe even light itself—in a perfect stack of bound paper you can hold in one hand and call up at will just by opening the cover. When I hear people making music, I don’t want to sit and let it wash over me; I want to join in, to be in the middle of that swirl of sound, adding my voice to the texture.

I wonder sometimes if this isn’t a condition for which people are encouraged to take medication. There is so much I want to do, so much I want to read, to see, to hear, to create, to play, so many challenges I want to take. Then there are all the opportunities I want to give my kids, all the things I want to say yes to. How does a person not explode with all of it? Or climb a few refrigerators, for that matter?

Then again, how many times have I been in complete dismay over the mess? The chaos? How many times do I have to force myself to let go and allow water to spill, paint to be splattered, Play-Doh colors to be mixed and (heaven help me) all the supplies to get used up, dried-out, or cut to pieces? It is a hard thing to want to be good and safe and responsible while also desiring to nurture some sort of familial hotbed of creativity. Sometimes I recognize the creative goodness all around and revel in it. Other times it sort of looks like a disaster.

How easy to forget that these three are actually quite a bit like me. My kids don’t play or create or imagine in straight lines and neat piles any more than I do. It makes for an interesting home life and yes, a messy house.

Sometimes I think the biggest challenge we have right now, as individuals and as a family, is to learn how to channel all that energy. I wonder who will grow up first, Mom or kids? And what would that actually look like? Is it possible you the reader are reading this and thinking that we’re all actually right where we’re supposed to be, learning and growing together?

So far, I haven’t found anybody on top of the refrigerator, but I have to say: these three mysterious beings I live with are in the habit of surprising me quite often. Who could possibly say what is waiting around the corner?


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Monday, October 3, 2011

10 Bits of Magic


Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. An opening that shimmers
2. Violin line that plunges and soars
3. Low brass
4. Light against dark
5. Contrast of spare sound with lush
6. Thundering timpani
7. Brooding melodies
8. Moments where time and movement are suspended
9. Full-out, passionate everything
10. Overlapping power and delicacy

Listen to the Sibelius Violin Concerto performed by Itzhak Perlman

What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?


I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've seen recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Saturday, October 1, 2011

What I Saw

What a blessing that we "have" to take a weekly nature walk these days. The woods are full of treasures: