Monday in June.

Rainy June morning, after all that sunshine.  It provides a quiet space and moment.  Here we are-- Off the sidewalks, out of the sun, inside making lists.  Organizing work.  Did I clean my brushes from the other day?  Some old bank statement under little torn off bits of sponge.  And scraps of tissue paper kept from Violet's birthday that I thought were sweet and might use again for something.
A bottle cap, a spoon, a dried up tea bag in a cup.
Pencil shavings; sketches waiting to be hole-punched.
This is my desk.
Hello Monday.  Tired, aren't we.
Rub your eyes, this week is on and you are still in slipper feet.

Ceremonies

Ceremony season has nested fully in our home, with cakes and velvet regalia; flowers, balloon animals, champagne, family filtering through in soft-leathered shoes, and phone calls from those who are far away.

Yesterday was Tyler's commencement; He was hooded for his doctoral degree.  It was one of those rare exquisite moments that for years to come will be displayed in my mind as little snap shots--  His royal purple gown, and puff-pie pillow hat-- very medieval looking-- and his official hooding, with all his future colleagues cheering on.  Violet on her chair, starfish hands waving for her dad who began this whole endeavor before she was even alive.  

There is something special about these moments where we sit and gaze so intently at the life and achievements of someone close to us.   I remember as a kid watching my dad give talks.  All of these eyes focused on him, and the applause that would come at the beginning-- even before he had said anything-- it always made me realize (even if just for that moment) that my dad was in and of the world.  And it was no different with my mom.  She ran a toy shop, and I would sit and watch her running the counter, handling money, chatting up the customers, winning smiles and hearts.  So in charge.  

I think as adults we don't do this intense gazing enough.  But these ceremonies take us back to that spot, watching from the bleachers, as those who are closest to us achieve a formal place in the world of doers of great things.  

_____

As an interesting epilogue to yesterday's festivities, today Violet had her first ballet recital.  All done up in stars and tights and nerves, I left her with her dance-mates back stage.  It was a very strange feeling to just leave her there, and then sit and wait in the audience for the show to begin.  She kept saying to me this morning "yesterday we cheered for my daddy who was on stage, and today you guys will cheer for me"-- this little mantra going through her head, I could tell, up until the very end.  

Really remarkably strange-- sitting and watching my kid from afar.  Really watching her with that same intense graduation gaze.  As much as we're focused on our kids, I think (at least personally) it must be very rare that I actually take the time to silently just watch her like that, as her own little person with goals and hopes and dreams.  

I expected her to be fearful and miserable up there...  but she was beaming.  Costumes and dancing, friends, music, applause.  It was overdone and silly, and she was absolutely in heaven.  And then the best part: her glowing self pride at the end of it all.  Like she had done exactly what she had always wanted to do.
Goodness, I love my family.  And phew, I'm happy it's summer.  Time for a little rest and woods, maybe?  

This is Mother's Day

Yes indeed, tiny love, this is Moth Ers Day.  Thank you for this card, and for the 10-bead necklace of little plastic hearts.  With your eyes an inch away from mine, your single-breath decree: mama, you can wear this all day it's for you and it's made of hearts because I love you.  

Dress-wearing, garden-digging, baseball-watching, breakfasting like royalty.
This is Mother's Day.  And I miss my mother who is far away and enjoys all of these things.
Distance is so hard, they say, and it always is true.

With Oregon and half of California in between us, I sent my mom a book with a published poem, my own little version of a 10-bead necklace-- Because she is marvelous, and I am still wide-eyed and wishing I could do more.  I was remembering today how she taught me all of my times-tables in third grade.  She let me jump on the bed while reciting my seven and eights, which are tricky.

Mom, you taught me what motherhood is all about.
It is hard, and fun too.  A bit like learning your eights while jumping on the bed.
I love you, and I love my girl who ended the day by making me a red and green Christmas Zoo out of legos (because, as she poignantly put, Christmas is a really fun and special treat to have on Mother's Day).  
This is Mother's Day, and this is Motherhood.  What a kick!  She's such a little friend.

Oyster uncertainty friends.

Baseball friends.

Dress friends. 

****

Thank you, Mom, for finding in your 

wallet every year a spot for my school 

photo.  Even in 8th grade, when my face 

was mostly dental work, you found a space.  

What a gift of confidence this gave me, just 

knowing in my goofy grin you took a little 

pride.  

And even now, in my adulthood, as I 

wait in grocery lines, it makes me smile to 

remember hidden deep within your wallet, 

you have aligned my face with opera stars 

on ticket stubs, your favorite cookie fortune, 

and that one-hundred-dollar bill 

you found in 1984.  

Speaking the Language

When my kid is sick I find myself doing all these things my own mother used to do.  I set her up in this little picture of what I hope will help-- there's a small bowl of apple slices, a glass of water, a stuffed toy to hug, a kitchen pot just in case the breakfast toast comes up.  She sleeps in socks, under a pile of pillows and blankets, with the mid-day light of Thursday filling up the room.

Sometimes I feel so completely inadequate as a mom.  Maybe we all do.
When I was trying to learn Italian I remember someone telling me that you couldn't do it by translating in your head everything into English.  You had to just start thinking in Italian.
So uccello isn't bird.  Uccello is just uccello.  
I think about that a lot.
Motherhood is its own foreign language, but maybe it's something like Latin-- and some days I can't quite crack the code or get into the flow of it because it only really exists in poetry.  So I'm making up all these things to fill in the gaps as I go along, and just trying to think poetically instead of logically.

So I'll hold your foot while you rest, and know that somehow it helps.  Later, we'll do puzzles to help reduce your fever.

Violet's Map

I was listening to this interview with Simon Garfield on NPR a few months ago, and haven't been able to get it out of my head.  It was all about maps-- the making of them, how they are varied and flawed, and how historically they are these beautiful pieces of art.

But what really stuck with me was the author's point about how different one's experience is with a map than with a GPS.  

A simple point, but the author talks about how we lose the romance of maps when we turn on the GPS; we lose site of this whole unfolded huge beautiful large world that is out there-- valleys and rivers and mountains-- when we turn on the GPS we see only ourselves; a flashing dot that moves from A to B without a a larger vision of the surrounding world.  As the author says, "you get the feeling, actually, 'It's all about me'... It's a terribly egocentric way of looking at the world".  

Anyway, maps.  

I think this interview has been on my mind partially because Violet is totally and completely into maps. She is always handing us imaginary maps when we drive places these days, and whenever we go to the zoo we spend a good chunk of our time there just staring at the zoo map board.  When we get home, she unfolds her paper map and gets out some little people to trot along the yellow trail line, and shows how they can go from the goats to the bears and see the penguins and snakes along the way (but if they want to see the giraffes and elephants, they'll have to go a different way). 

I don't really know how she got into maps.  Maybe it started with India a few years ago, when we got her a playground ball that looked like a globe, and showed her Seattle and then India.  Then we started talking about other places, like Berkeley and Chico, and then Wisconsin and Whidbey Island.  

Well, long story short, Violet made her own map at preschool yesterday.  I think it's somewhere in between the romantic idea of a traditional all-encompasing map, and an egocentric (haha) GPS.  But, well, such is the mind of a 4 year old.  

Children's Concert at the Seattle Center

This afternoon we got dressed up in our fanciest of fancies and made our way to the Seattle Center for the annual Children's Concert.  We've never been, but now that Violet is 4 we're starting to do all this real person stuff with her like go to little shows and have extensive conversations about how peanut butter is made.

Anyway.

The Children's Concert was awesome.  It is put on mainly by the Seattle Men's Chorus and Seattle Women's Chorus, but also features acts from kids theatre groups.

The whole thing began with the men's chorus standing on bleacher steps singing Abba songs.  SO fun! A live orchestra, and so many fun interactive songs for the kids.  I was completely impressed.


Also, a storytelling of And Tango Makes Three.  Have you heard of this book?  Apparently it's controversial, and even banned in some places, because it tells the true story of two male penguins in a zoo who pair off together and sit on an egg and raise a baby chick with each other.
Can I just mention again how happy I am to be living in a city that would host a free concert for children that focuses on love no matter what the flavor?
Love is love is love, (at least in this family) and what a beautiful way to celebrate it today.  I am so excited that we get to raise our child here.  She will grow up in a community that is open and supportive and filled with so much love.

Also, I know I keep saying it, but I can't believe how suddenly grownup my kid is.  She wore this beautiful dress that she got for her birthday, and sat just like any other person in the big velvet theatre seat. She clapped and was attentive and laughed at all the jokes.
Also, she got to see a disco ball for the first time ever (yes, it blew her mind).  

Thank you, Seattle.  What a great public event.  Can't wait to do it again next year!

 PS-- We walked a mile in the monsoon to save $13 on parking, so we decided we all deserved a quick sushi snack after the show :) 

Chowder's Garden

Last October we lost our wonderful siamese cat, Chowder, after only having him for a year.
It was so rainy and dark.  Everything was stones and gravel and frozen dirt; and we had to burry him late at night, in the wet cold beginning of winter.
It was horribly sad.  Really unthinkably sad.
We still miss him; his eyes were the color of peacock plumes running toward me in the morning begging for breakfast.

In the week after he died, I found this paper sack of tulip and hyacinth bulbs that my mom had given me, shoved in the closet behind the summer sand toys.
Still trying to figure out how to deal with all the sadness of losing Chowder, Violet and I decided to plant a little garden for him.
So we went outside and sat in the dirt planting bulbs for an hour.
And it helped, just a little.

Well, it's spring now, and Chowder's garden has come into bloom!
It was hard to think, on that horrible stone cold October night that it ever could have happened.
You think life is gone, permanently, and then in the rosiest shade of rose, up it comes, and stands proud on the straightest green legs you've ever seen.
Your tulips, Chowder-- They look like flamingo eggs waving in the wind outside our window.  
We wave back.
They've made us happy.