Inside/Outside

I’ve been wondering at myself lately, all the time I’ve been spending inside. The previous two winters I refused to let the cold get to me. I drew the line only at running on ice—although even when the pavement seemed fine there were times I would come around a corner and find myself on new ground entirely, slick and hard and threatening. For two winters I was proud of my no backing down, whether it was cold or snow or rain or my breathing that stood in the way.

This winter I’ve had to be more gentle with myself. Less running, more sleep, more time inside. I realized I really could survive running on a track. I realized being gentle with myself was not the same as giving up or backing down. I also realized I had no choice but to let my body recover. And after months of not-quite-enough-air I am finally starting to feel not only clear lungs but something like strength. This gives me a whole lot of hope for future strength of all kinds.

Even so, it seems like I take a lot of pictures through windows. Why are you hiding inside? That voice in my head knows exactly what to say. Except I know I’m not hiding, just practicing no backing down in a different form. Besides, these windows are what allow me to take shelter and look Out. They let in the light, they let in the view, they let in a fresh sunrise and sunset every day without fail. They let in a fair amount of fresh air, being as old as they are, just stand close to one and feel that gentlest of breezes. And then—frost. And light through frost, and light through rippled old glass. And the play of light and reflection and rippled glass and the view out into the world.  All of it from a place of warmth and shelter.

This morning, Middle called me to the window for a spectacular sunrise, and cheered me on while I dashed around the house looking for my camera. And it was a proud moment, knowing that she saw, and we shared. And then we saw more—how Inside and Outside came together on the window and made something new.

And it was magic.

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Inhale, exhale. Tear apart, rebuild.

Snow Day, take three.

I love the virgin windswept stuff as much as I love the clumpy boot-tracks through it, the small horse sculpture on our front porch, the snow cave in the back yard just off the driveway. I am claiming it all as vacation. Yes there have been plenty of arguments, children wishing they had been born an only child and maybe even wishing they had been born without-parents, parents who feel like there is constantly someone wanting something from three rooms away. But also there have been three mornings of sleeping in, three days of reading, movies, elaborate play scenes in the basement, three days of making stuff in all sorts of ways. 

I love that sometimes everything else has to stop for the weather, no matter what was planned. It's so much more fun than when everything stops for illness. To be honest, the weather we've been having here really just qualifies as normal "winter" in my mind, but I live in a place that doesn't quite have the infrastructure for dealing with it. And so normal life stops for a while.

I don't know what it is in me that feels a little giddy when the weather overpowers everyday-normal, but it hasn't disappeared yet, and I hope it never does.

I have been making things. And planning and thinking and puzzling over things (the kind of planning and thinking and puzzling I love.) Writing is a necessity these days, a kind of breathing. So too, though, is using my hands. Making something touchable, hold-able, outside-of-my-head is a different kind of breathing, and I've developed a whole new appreciation in the last few months for good strong breathing. Inhale, exhale. Take in, release. Internalize, create.

I've been thinking about the pomegranate that sat on the kitchen counter forever while my kids asked every day if we were going to have it for dinner. Because, well, time. And laziness. Finally, though, I got myself to coax the seeds from the peel and membrane wrapped tightly around them.

Like always, they were worth the trouble. 

I've been thinking, too, about how much of creating something actually requires a taking-apart. 

How art requires sketching and re-sketching and erasing and setting aside (throwing away? burning?) all the versions that didn't work. 

How many tantrums I had as a child because I didn't understand this, or, once I understood, didn't see how it was at all fair. 

How learning a new piece of music requires tearing it apart and putting it back together bit-by-bit, only to tear it apart and rebuild again. 

How uncomfortable and distasteful a process this can be and how a large part of teaching violin is helping students get past that, helping them to see all the rewards of putting in that kind of work.

How life—if you want it to truly be a living, breathing thing, if you accept your calling to make it a work of art—is like that, too: a continual creation, a continual breaking-apart and re-shaping. 

How I know that and embrace it and fight it all at once. How I have to keep discovering it, even though I already know.

How being willing to participate in the whole messy process is a daily act of faith, and how that, too, is part of the Art.

Happy Blue-sky-bitter-cold Snowy Winter Day, friends.

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Perfect

My definition of the word keeps changing. For example:

1. Middle is downstairs, pouring melted chocolate into little plastic molds. She found a book at the library earlier today, and the Candy Paints recipe has captured her entirely. The third act of "Madame Butterfly" is playing on the radio. “I like this,” she tells me, when I ask on my way upstairs if I should leave it on. “I can actually tell when she’s sad.” “I like it too,” I say, meaning all of it, the whole scene before me. It is perfection.

2. Earlier today, at the library—Youngest’s excitement. Finding BOOKS! About anything, about everything. About DINOSAURS, and SHARKS, and Encyclopedia Brown, and even though early in the visit she has to remind me, “Mom. I like non-fiction,” by the end there are a number of slim sparkly fairy books included in her towering stack. She is breathless and using her best Owen Meany voice and wants to check out books all by herself, JUST GIVE ME MY CARD MOM. We're trying to help her learn appropriate library behavior, but in this moment her behavior strikes me at the same time as absolutely perfect.

3. Oldest. Having never been one myself, I still think boys are mysterious. And I wish being thirteen did not seem to require such frequent anger with everyone who is not thirteen. But then Oldest and I get to talk about things—life and music and current events and technology and, even more fun I think, technological design (he has exquisite, expensive taste.) And I love liking him so much. I like talking to him. I like how he surprises me. I like his friends.  And I think this is exquisitely good. I think maybe it is its own form of perfect.

4. We are standing around the dining room table, painting chocolates and making a mess, beautiful and colorful. Chatting. In the background, a radio interview about the Super Bowl tomorrow. And suddenly, Youngest pipes up. Apparently she has been listening. “I don’t know why they think Quiz Bowl is dangerous.”

Everything that says about our family—that seems perfect, too.

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Manifesto for Tuesday Morning

Expand, expand, expand.

Never grow tired of sunrises

or frost on windows

or talking to children.

Drink ginger tea

because a friend told you to—

only leave the tea bag in the cup,

just leave it

and let it all turn spicy and rich

and drink that goodness all day—

long after the cup itself is empty.

Enjoy the silence.

Enjoy the noise.

Learn how to seek out

both, and when.

Remember that these three things

are braided through it all:

love,

mystery,

grace.

Follow those strands through,

trace their path

with your fingertip.

Breathe deep.

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A List for the Middle of the Night

“Mommy, give me something to think about,” she often asks when I tuck her back in to bed in the middle of the night. Bad dreams have this way of haunting. They need to be crowded out with other thoughts.

You are swimming in a pool filled with chocolate—sweet, smooth, thick.

You are walking through a field of flowers, never-ending. Every flower is a different color. Every flower is a jewel, cut paper-thin and glowing in the sun.

You are a mountain climber who cannot fall. You can climb anything, anywhere, as easily as walking up the stairs.

You have the power to shrink or grow to any size. What will you do? Where will you go?

You have the opportunity to spend one day being somebody else—thinking their thoughts, feeling their feelings, doing what they do.

You find a magical pair of shoes. They will take you anywhere in the universe.

You live in Upside-Down World.

Your pet mouse is a fairy in disguise.

Your pet mouse is a spy in disguise.

You own an invisible car. Only you can drive it.

You get to spend one night in the biggest candy store in the world.

Instead of walking you have to fly.

Your best friend is a flying horse.

You are the most famous dancer in the world.

You are the most famous whistler in the world. Your whistling, in fact, has magical powers.

The whole world voted and made you queen for one year. What will that be like?

You are a star, watching the world from above. What does that feel like? What do you see? What do you know that nobody else knows?

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More than Enough

Tuesday morning:

“There are a whole lot of people in this world whose job it is to make you feel discontent. Our economy is kind of built around all of us feeling like we don’t have enough. Ever.”

I don’t know if he really heard me. I got the “I know, I know,” but really he was too angry about all the limitations of his unbelievably-amazing-and-perfect-six-months-ago birthday present.

Did I get across to him how much I struggle with it, too? Did he hear me say that we each have to find a way of looking around us and seeing enough? It is part, I think, of the daily battle.

*     *     *

We took Youngest off gluten and dairy a week ago on a what-if whim, hoping to find relief from her constant stomach aches. She has gone a week now with only two stomach aches. Figuring out new ways to eat has been a challenge, but we’re trying to just go with it. Gluten-free loaves of bread from the grocery store—no, dairy-free cheese substitute—no. Expensive, plus she won’t eat them. My plain old corn bread recipe with two straight substitutions—yes. So we’re rethinking food. Trying to focus on what works while being honest about all the “nos” we’re coming up against.

There’s something very familiar about this path.

*     *     *

Also Tuesday morning:

In the face of way too much to get done, a black bean chocolate cake recipe. (A magical recipe—here.) The scents of chocolate and orange and vanilla and coffee all around.

Sibelius 5 playing over and over, so I can absorb it into my soul and mind for rehearsal tonight.

The memory of last night’s wind, and the way it made the bedroom shades poof out when it blew especially hard. Through the glass, storm windows and all. (Thankful for you, old house—I actually really like you this way. Thankful for you also, down comforter.)

The field of frost flowers and grasses on the window.

The Queen Anne’s Lace behind the house, nothing but skeleton now, arms still held up to the sky, open to gather what comes.

The moments, suspended, when everything—in spite of everything else—felt like more than enough. This is how I will fight.

*     *     *

Wednesday evening, now:

I’ll be honest: today was a long, tired, tiring day—one of those days in which time and chaos and humanness simply overtook everything else. Finally I have the chance to post what I wrote yesterday. And I will. Because even though the only thing I can think of to do in the face of today is go to bed, yesterday’s more-than-enough still counts.

That, too, is part of the fight.

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Second Look

So somebody stuck a pair of googly eyes on the ketchup dispenser at Culver's. I took the picture because it was whimsical, because I loved the happiness unexpected. Because if our family is at Culver's it means we are on the road and some combination of tired and hungry, regardless of anything else, and seeing this cut into that mood.

But since I took the picture it has kept speaking. About whimsy, yes, but also about generosity. About how there's a lot of power in being able to share what you see, and even more power in doing it simply. About "Show, don't tell," and surprise, and seeing, in general. 

There's a whole story behind this that I'll never know. And the person who did it will never know how it lived on in my imagination. But there's a connection now, and regardless of intent or anything else, when I look at this picture I will forever see a work of art.

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Heat Signature

“Mom, look!”

Oldest had a projector set up in the dining room, shining across the table onto the drawn window shades. He had lit candles for dinner, a new small joy he’s brought into our lives recently, and their shadow—

“Look at the flames!”

“I know. That’s a heat signature. I learned about it on Doctor Who.” He started describing the episode.

I looked it up, and I’m not sure that’s exactly what we saw. However, the way my mind works, that’s okay. I learned something true.

First, the candles—their shadow showed something different. We could see their heat rising, rippling into the air. We saw how the flame took up more space—different space—as a shadow than it did as a flame. In your mind you can put flame and shadow together but you still don’t have the whole story.

Second—the idea of heat having a signature. Something that can be left behind, that identifies it's source, even. And of course, the physical side is only the beginning of it.

*     *     *

I’ve been thinking about what people leave behind. The better and longer you have known someone the more complex their signature. But a single sentence or look or gesture, left even by people who are maybe just passing through, can carve a signature deep into the soul, as well. 

“I always used to watch your thighs jiggle in dance class.”

“We! Hate! You!”

“When I had young children I did not bring them to the grocery store.”

The once-overs that said, “What are you doing here?” and “I just wrote you off.”

“He thinks you do drugs. You’re always staring off into space.”

“Well we decided we were going to let God decide how many children we have.”

“Well. You should try harder.”

But also:

“You said our relationship could be about more than just joking around and you were right.”

“If you play as beautifully as you look I would love to hear you someday.” (This is especially powerful spoken by a famous violin teacher to a 13 year-old who does not feel beautiful.)

“You’re right. I made assumptions about who you were, and I shouldn’t have.”

“You matter, too.”

“We’re so proud of you.”

“You were scared? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were just really, really brave!”

“I feel like I can talk to you about this.”

*     *     *

It strikes me that we don’t always have control over the signature, what we leave or what we carry with us. That whether it is good or bad or confusing, it continues to burn. That we can’t be certain what kind of trail we’ve left behind us.

It also strikes me that the signatures that burn warmest come mostly from people who are still a part of my life. That my handwritten signature looks the way it does partly because of decisions I made about how I wanted it to look. That I've seen a few small strokes change the entire picture, and that a true artist is always looking for ways to improve her craft.

And if you think that you somehow don’t matter, that you are not constantly touching others, you simply have no idea.

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Waiting for the Thaw

Sometimes the words just freeze. It’s not a matter of coaxing—sometimes they cling to the sides of things—hard and inert, unwilling to take shape in the air, content instead to form patterns across the surface of something else.

I’ve been thinking about how brokenness—what is there to say, even? It is there, touching everyone, always, but we get good at hiding it. Sometimes it hits harder, comes out of the shadows and refuses to be ignored. It hits everyone, children included, and sometimes it hits a child you know. And sometimes it draws back and hits someone—a child, even—so hard it sends everyone for miles around reeling.

So you wait for the words to thaw.

And you pray, but your prayers cannot fix it. But you pray.

And you look for ways to help, but your help cannot fix it. But you help, if you can.

And you listen, but your listening cannot fix it. But you listen, anyway.

You try to trust the season, even while you fight the circumstances. You bundle up. You remind yourself that words may freeze, but there are other ways to speak.

Then you do your best to keep the people around you warm.

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...And a Prayer that the Light Ripples Outward

New Year’s Day: we all slept in, we remained lost in our few-days-without-schedule. Thankful, still, for leftovers as well as recent gifts of pumpkin bread and cheese curds (which, when warm, still squeak perfectly between our teeth.) Our vacation has been good.

I don’t tend towards formal New Year's resolutions. I like my lists, but they have this way of making me crazy, the more detailed they get. Better to create a framework and then allow fluidity within that—it keeps me from getting discouraged and giving up altogether. Besides, I spend a lot of time, already, processing and examining and setting goals. Sitting down to do it formally on this day seems excessive.

But still, let’s mark the day, honor the way it looks back and looks forward.

So at lunch, everybody got two squares of paper. Two minutes of (almost) silence, and then each of us wrote things we would like to say goodbye to on one paper, and things we would like to welcome in or carry with us on the other. We burned our goodbye papers in a bowl outside, and kept our welcome papers to do with as we wish, as long as we hold on to them.

This evening I folded mine into a paper crane. Maybe what I wrote will take wing through the year. The paper I started with was not a perfect square, so it is the clumsiest paper crane I have made in a very long time. I expect there might be an equal amount of clumsiness to bringing these goals into my life, so I’m calling the crane perfect. I’m also calling it a prayer.

I am counting on a ripple effect. I am hoping that the drops I start with will spread outward, gathering strength and brightness as they move. That the effort is not mine alone, and that I am not—ever—alone.  These things, too, are folded up in the prayer.

If it flies I cannot take credit, but I can watch, and thank God for the beauty.

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