Reconsidering the Harvest

I stepped out on the front porch in my felt clogs one icy morning last week and wiped out on the front porch. This was just before I tried to pull a carrot from the ground for my daughter’s lunch and ended up with a fistful of worthless, frozen greens. Irritated, I slinked back in to assemble her lunch sans veggie dippers.

In the evening, I was determined to use one of the stuck carrots. We were out of onions and I needed something to fill out our pilaf. This time, I went out in boots and carried a dandelion weeder. I started to dig. I was rewarded with two pitiful half-carrots, their skins in shreds. After I peeled and sliced them in half, I could see that they were frozen to the core. I put them in a pan with garlic and thought about all those gorgeous roots in the earth where, apparently, I couldn’t get to them. And I thought about their neighbors, the frozen beets, with formerly stunning greens now limp in gooey sun shapes on the flat dirt. Grr.

But when I came into the house with the disintegrating carrots, the fire under the rice pot was blue and hot. I could smell sweet brown basmati and shredded coconut bubbling away under the lid. I pulled out some frozen chard that my husband harvested and blanched in the summer and set it on the back burner with a little water, a bay leaf and a whole slew of frozen peas.

I may not be an instinctive gardener (or seamstress — that’s another story!) but there are things I do well, like cooking up fresh food.

This summer, my aunt and I were talking about the garden. We have a small space, just three raised beds. I was telling her how I’d like to learn how to pack and rotate a large variety of food into the space we have, now that I’ve realized that we need only  a few plants of each kind of vegetable for our family (not *ahem* two rows of chard, for instance). She didn’t miss a beat but said, I think you ought to harvest your writing instead.

You know, I could read up on compact gardening methods and come up with a detailed plan for the upcoming season. And I may do a little thinking about how to maximize the space we have. But instead of devoting a lot of time to the garden right now, I’d like to spend my time practicing something I want to do well: writing.

This week it’s warmed up enough that I can harvest a bunch of carrots and beets this weekend in case they freeze over again. And I’ll enjoy cooking them. But as I do, instead of dreaming about my garden plot this winter, I’ll hunker down, look forward to the memoir class I’m taking in a few weeks, free-write, and brainstorm some new submission goals for this spring.

Photo courtesy of Lida Rose (via Creative Commons).

Tiny Little Post

My son has been taking a stab at spelling lately. As in, “Cup starts with B,” and “Truck starts with M.”

This is inexcusably cheesy, but this morning he made me want to hug his sweet, little-boy self close to my heart when he amended the spelling game and said, “Mommy starts with Love.”

Opt Out, Chill Out: Buy Nothing Day

Is your shopping list ready? Then wait. Just one more day.

I will. Adbusters is having a campaign encouraging people to consume nothing at all this Friday, in an attempt to transform Black Friday into Buy Nothing Day. They’re suggesting people consider going so far as to unplug the phone and the computer and keep the car parked for a day. Adbusters says, “You may find that it’s harder than you think, that the impulse to buy is more ingrained in you than you ever realized.”

This may be true, but it could also be a relief. I’ve observed Buy Nothing Day in years past and it not only frees me from the compulsion to shop, but acts as a good bookend to the hectic preparations leading up to the Thanksgiving meal.

Here are my top reasons for participating:

I get to spend time alone. Really alone. On a typical day, I’m around my kids, other parents, my spouse and, inevitably, other consumers. When I’m “by myself,” I’m not, really. Not entirely. I’m interacting with people on Facebook and responding to emails. Maybe on Friday I’ll take a walk, read a book or take a nap. Or maybe I’ll just look at something I can’t consume. Like the sky.

I get to spend time with other people. Opting out of buying activities means I won’t be running errands with people I love, but relating to them. My daughter is newly interested in games, so I’m looking forward to some Apples to Apples or Clue, Jr. on Friday. Maybe I’ll even participate in StoryCorps‘ National Day of Listening. What a great idea (a big thank you to Louise at Thoughts Happen for making me aware of this. Read her post on StoryCorps here).

I get to model anti-consumerism to my kids. I often talk to them about the untruths in advertising but still feel like I cop out when it comes to my own buying habits. By not consuming on Friday, I’ll become aware of my own impulse to buy. I’ll also show them (and myself) that putting a halt to acquiring stuff is not only possible but desirable.

I get to avoid “mall head.” Though I try to shop local, especially around the holidays, I always seem to find myself in the mall. I don’t know if it’s their heating and cooling systems or if my head is rebelling against rows of stores under one roof, but I inevitably get a head-stuffed-with-cotton headache after shopping at the mall. Maybe it’s an allergy.

After a day of bounty, it makes sense to take it easy. If you’ve opted out of the buying frenzy in years past or decide to do so this year, let me know what you experience and how you fill your day.

Photo courtesy of laffy4k (via Creative Commons).

Swimming Upstream

This morning, my son had an all-out fit when I gave him a different brand of O’s than his sister. I tried. I knew it might be a sticking point, so I went so far as to move the internal bag from the new box into the old one before pouring them into his bowl.

Ohhhh, no. He wasn’t fooled for a second. His rage escalated and he ended up screaming for something like all morning. I repeatedly sat him down on a futon in the other room, explaining to him in a not-so-quiet voice (otherwise he wouldn’t hear me over the din) that he could come rejoin the family when he settled down.

This was one deep rabbit hole. He couldn’t shake it. He didn’t want me to hold him. It was already past his usual time for breakfast so he was hungry, too. All he wanted to do was dig the old box out of the recycling bin (I finally gave up the ruse and tossed it in), hold it, and scream.

To get him away from my daughter — I figured at least someone could enjoy a few minutes of quiet — I took him upstairs, plopped him on our bed, and sat next to him with my fingers in my ears. When the screaming began to be punctuated with breathing spells, I picked him up and told him he did a good job settling down. He found his voice and told me he wanted to go to his own bed. Phew.

After taking my daughter to school, coming back for breakfast, and packing snacks for our preschool group, he was calm and happy again. That is, until we had to get in the car. He just wanted to stand in the (freezing) driveway. The toddler dawdle. Sensing the ticking of the clock, I finally picked him up, kindly, and strapped him in the car. He started up the screaming again, but I figured he’d work it out by the time we reached the nature trail where our group was already congregating.

And, guess what? He stopped crying before we reached the end of the block.

On the trail, he sloshed along the path with the other kids, peered over the railings at his own reflection in the water and marveled along with the rest of us at the return of the salmon.

As I watched the fish alternating resting spells with sprints against the current, I saw the same resilience in them as in my son. I’m just so proud of the little guy for pulling out of a crummy morning so beautifully.

Even though it’s hard for me to navigate his strong emotions, I need to remember that sometimes the turnaround goes the right way.

Photo courtesy of GlennFleishman (Creative Commons).

Reaching Out, Staying Sane. Over Drinks.

 

Several friends and I have kicked around the idea of hearkening back to our grandparents’ generation by organizing cocktail hours designed to get us through the late-afternoon push. The idea is that whining and general chaos have a greater chance of being neutralized if we can persuade our kids into thinking it’s not really the end of the day. That they’re not really starved for one-on-one attention right at the hour when we need to be prepping dinner. That what they really need is a little creative play with some peers while their parents sit around or cook over drinks.

A friend and stay-at-home dad said to me the other day, Parenting isn’t like PTSD because it’s ongoing.

Tongue-in-cheek as that may sound, it rings a bell. Constant parenting can make you feel diagnosable.

My advice to him and, had I been able to give it, to myself over the last two years, is this: be as aggressively proactive as your stretched-thin, bleary-eyed self can manage about getting support. Call other parents, grandparents, babysitters. Organize a babysitting co-op, trade kids with friends for the morning, plan a time at the gym together, have play dates every day. Every hour if you need them.

And this: be honest about how difficult staying home with young children can be.

I’m not advocating pity-parties that don’t lead to anything but more despair (no, despair is not an over-statement). I’m not suggesting we ignore the creativity of our kids or moan constantly about lost freedoms or parenting dilemmas (though moaning can be cathartic).

I’m suggesting that no one try to pretend this gig is easy.

My husband said he’s heard parenting referred to as the tyranny of the now. It’s true. It’s not that any of us resent our children for needing to be bathed and clothed and nurtured. Of course not. It’s this: for long, long stretches of time, there isn’t room for anything else.

Our family is lucky, really lucky, to live within driving distance of most our kids’ grandparents (in the case of my in-laws, we’re within a few miles). After living in another part of the country for the first three years of my daughter’s life, I don’t take built-in babysitters for granted one little bit.

But even people with family in town need other folks to help carry the load. We can’t impose on our parents all the time. We want to respect the effort, time and love they give our kids while still holding down full-time jobs and running their own households and social schedules. Plus, we just need other people.

I know I do. So, here’s to friends. Here’s to late-afternoon distraction and play. Here’s to sanity. Here’s to happy hour!

 

These images courtesy of Monocle (via Creative Commons).

Fairy Dust and Health Care Reform

If you’ve read past posts about our son, you know we’ve dealt with screaming fits a lot in the past year. Strident, who-knows-where-they-come-from, all-out wailing episodes.

One morning this summer, when the windows were open and he didn’t want his diaper changed, he launched into a 20-minute fit. During breakfast, just after we managed to help him settle into a normal morning routine, a policeman showed up at our door. Really. It was that bad.

I want to acknowledge that he doesn’t scream all the time. In fact, we’re having a blissful week. He’s cheerful and funny. He shows us dance moves. He comes up with little scenarios. “I tell you about truck, Mommy,” he says, “and you be funny.” That means, “and you laugh.”

Partly, he’s coming into his own.

Partly, he’s just plain feeling better.

Two weeks ago both he and his dad were sick. For my son, this meant grumpy sick. Mild-fever sick. Clingy sick. Mommy’s-going-to-pull-her-hair-out sick. And, yes, screaming-fit sick.

I know his recurrent, uncontrollable outbursts are not usually due to illness. Their absence this week just makes me hyper-aware of how great it is to live in a harmonious, healthy household.

Which makes my thoughts turn, now that I have fewer coughs to dodge, to health care. I know not everyone’s well. I know not everyone will kick their illnesses like our boys did that nasty virus.

For the record, this is what I think:

All people should have access to preventive care to help keep them from getting sick and urgent care when they need it.

People who have chronic illnesses should have access to adequate, affordable health care all the time. These families and individuals should not be obligated to fight a third party so they can have the care and supplies they need.

If people are healthy, they will be more effective, more creative, more involved citizens. It is civilized, and good sense, to ensure that all people are covered.

***

A friend of mine who’s a teacher has a little humorous thing she does with her fourth graders. If they leave their seat to ask her a question during a time when it’s inappropriate for them to be doing so (such as when she’s teaching or when they’re supposed to be working silently on an assignment), she looks at them with her twinkly teacher eye, feigns a tossing of fairy dust and says, Poof! As in, I’m just going to pretend you’re still at your desk!

Kids laugh when they get poofed and remember the rule the next time.

I wish this approach would work with insurance companies.

You know, Poof! We know you know better than to deny babies health coverage because they’re in the 99th percentile for weight.* Oops! You just forgot common sense! We know you’ll remember next time.

Or, Poof! Uh, oh! We have a little something to talk about. You know that woman who had breast cancer? Well, your job is not to fight bills that come in after her surgery. You forgot? Okay. Since she’s covered by your company, please pay the bills instead of looking for ways to deny coverage. Don’t put her and her family through more stress. They did, after all, live through the horror of cancer.

No. Poof won’t work with these companies. It’s time for reform, folks.

I’m busy. It’s hard for me to find time to read up on health care reform and even more difficult (and exasperating) to wade through the din of the debate.

But now that my family is feeling better, I have more time to keep up with this issue — and more time to devote to lots of other things, too. Just like the people who will benefit from health care reform.

Photo courtesy of hyperscholar (Creative Commons).

*The heavy infant in the linked story above was, in a reversal by the insurance company, approved for coverage following the flurry of media attention.

 

Meanwhile, the Carrots Burn…

Tonight I assembled dinner. (What I did could not really be called cooking: crepes, avocados, bananas and peanut butter, frozen peas, leftover casserole–throw the fridge on the table!) I put the kids in the bath, cleaned the kitchen, prepared the futon (for me), put my son down, watched a video with my daughter (it’s Friday, after all) and then put her to bed.

Have you guessed? My husband came down with our son’s virus last night. By 11:00 a.m. he was home from work, crashed out upstairs. Our son was sick and cranky for over a week. With my husband’s onset of symptoms, I’m fearing a family germ tour.

Weeks like this, I’m prone to having a major pity party, especially about topics for  essays. This week was so unglamorous, it’s painful to recount. I took care of a sick kid and tried to keep the daily grind from grinding to a halt. That’s it.

Where’s the fodder? I’m not organizing a 350 event (or, God help me, even attending one). I’m not globetrotting as a successful…whatever. I’m not doing anything particularly sexy with my life.

I think: What on earth is so interesting about the woes of a stay-at-home mom? What am I supposed to write? Certainly not this whiny mantra: Poor me! I held a screaming child for a solid week! Poor me! The dirty dishes mushroom in the sink while I balance a 33-pound child on my hip and try to hear the nurse on the other end of the phone! Poor me! I feel guilty because I had to ask my in-laws to watch the kids (again) so I can vacuum without damaging their hearing and scrub a week’s worth of spills off the kitchen floor!

I attended a writing conference a few weeks ago. In one of the workshops I attended, the presenting author talked a bit about poorly composed book proposals, particularly those with glaring errors (in one example, the writer referred to the enclosed manuscript as a “fiction novel”) or overall shoddy construction.

The presenter said she often hears her editor say about such things, It’s in the writing, sweetheart. In other words, just write well. Be careful and honest. Prioritize beautiful prose. Or a compelling argument. Or rich language. Or clear phrasing. Or the perfect metaphor. Don’t get too sloppy. But don’t try to get too fancy, either.

It’s in the writing. Not in the adventures I think I’d have if my life had turned out otherwise.

A few days ago, when my son was in the middle of his illness, the kids got into a tangle while I was trying to make dinner. I intervened and waited it out while we sorted through the squabble together. I could smell the carrots burning in the wok (we didn’t have any onions, you know). When I made it back to the kitchen, a number of them were little black discs. A number of them, but not all. Dinner wasn’t ruined. And the house didn’t burn down. I picked them out. I added garlic.

I guess it’s an imperfect comparison, but I see a similarity in writing. Write what is interesting, even if it’s just the wind. Write what is in front of you. And do it well. Attend to it so you can get it right, even if something in the other room has to burn for a little while.

Photo courtesy of Maggie Hoffman (Creative Commons).

A Little Fiction

Tonight we had a conference with our daughter’s kindergarten teacher. The first. Her teacher showed us a number of stories she wrote and illustrated, sweet little three page stories (beginning, middle, end). The best one? The one describing our trip to Hawaii. The beautiful beaches (page one), the house we stayed in (page two) and…the tsunami. Right.

After the translation of the tsunami page the teacher got a knowing look on her face and asked us if we’d been to Hawaii. Nnnn-no. Ah! She stepped right in and said to our daughter, You know the difference between fiction and nonfiction, right? (You remember the last post, don’t you? The one about her “lost” — broken, stashed — glasses?) She said to her teacher, earnestly, I’m much better at fiction.

Photo courtesy of epugachev (via Creative Commons).

Thank you, BCharmer!

Yesterday I was reading a new blog post by my neighbor and dear friend, Colleen. I was sighing, looking at yet another of her beautiful images from her garden. This one of “the simple dill weed umbel.”

In the same post she generously included Write the Journey among her nominations for a blog award. Wow! Thank you so much.

Colleen is a beautiful person and artist, inside and out. Just read her post from today about a workshop she attended on color. Colleen is the reason I’m even aware of Etsy — hers was the first shop I had ever visited. Check out her yummy designs here.

As part of the Kreativ Blogger recognition, I need to tell you seven things that most people don’t know about me. Here goes:

1. I grew up going to a summer camp in the Texas Hill Country.

2. I met my husband in college. He was the RA downstairs.

3. I spent the summer after my junior year in college in the inner city community of East Palo Alto, teaching kids. I loved the kids, but learned that I would never be a teacher. This is also when I first saw inequality up close.

4. I bailed out on a high school art requirement by taking art lessons from my grandmother one summer. I think I learned more from her in a few short lessons than I ever would have in art class.

5. One of my earliest memories is of dissecting hosta blooms that hung on the border of our neighbor’s front yard in California.

6. I don’t dislike cats, but I like birds more. This is probably because once a feral cat snagged a titmouse right off our bird feeder in front of my toddler daughter’s eyes.

7. I cried after I got home every day of junior high school.

And, I need to nominate seven wonderful bloggers. Here are some of my regular reads and why I find them inspiring:

1. Liz at Motherlogue. I love her attention to detail in writing fiction (a recent favorite: this story), her dedication to the writing process (see her Sunday Style posts) and poignant observations of her two young ones.

2. Stephanie at The Beautification Project. Stephanie makes me laugh. And laugh. And say, “Oh, yeah! She totally gets it!” Every time I read a post I feel like I relate completely. And like maybe she read my journal.

3. Mary Jo at Writers Inspired. This shingle is chock full of get-up-and-go-write inspiration. And I love the regular (like clockwork!) writing prompts and author interviews.

4. Nathalie at Nathalie’s Notes. Her daily word count is a reminder to me that, yes, a mother of a toddler can write a book. I’m cheering her on every time I check in.

5. Cara at The Hummels: the Assorted Ramblings of a Crafty Momma. My friend Cara posts stunning photos that make her blog feel like a travelogue through their daily family life. Cara makes time for crafting and sewing projects with a school-age daughter and makes it look easy. Even with toddler twins.

6. Louise at Thoughts Happen. She blogs about everything from childhood memories to the Dalai Lama. I especially love her posts on “A Complaint-Free World.” This one is the most recent.

Lost Glasses: A True Story

Our daughter’s glasses had been missing for over a week. And this child doesn’t have much in the way of distance vision without them. My husband was tearing the house apart. Searching. Moving things. Practically pleading with the house itself to cough them up. Under the bed? No. Inside her sleeping bag? No. Between the duvet cover and the comforter? In the playroom? How about under the couch? Nope. The car? Backpack? Bathroom drawers?

We both asked her repeatedly where she may have put them, but she clearly had no idea.

It’s common for her to misplace them. She can’t read with them on, after all. They constantly end up abandoned, dropped wherever she runs across printed words.

Still, it was curious, considering that she went an entire year without losing or breaking her first pair. Once when they went MIA for three weeks — we put up a desperate sign at the park — my husband finally spied them, nestled between the passenger seat and door of our car. Right where she’d put them. She’s downright responsible, if not always clear on the details.

You may wonder if I was involved in the colossal hunt. Well, strangely, no. There just wasn’t a fire in the Mama-belly to find them. She has a good pair of back-ups (we had the lenses of her first pair updated, just in case — pat, pat, pat), so I was only mildly annoyed, feeling certain they would surface any day. After all, our house tends to be in a tiny bit of, um, disarray. We all lose stuff around here. I just figured she does, too.

***

For the record, my husband wins all the intuition points on this one. Sunday night I climbed the stairs to find both kids staring up at him. He was standing in front of a desk on our landing, a drawer open. In each hand he held half of a pair of glasses.

The story? She had snapped them in half (on accident, she says) and stuffed them in the drawer where she hoped, apparently, they would rest in peace silently. Forever.

I know kids make up stories. And I know our daughter is particularly taken with make believe. But, she lied? She told us with a straight face over and over again that she had no idea where they were? Well, yes. She did.

Where are the eyes in the back of my head?

It’s difficult to be pragmatic in the wake of such an obvious breach of family etiquette. I felt immediately angry and, yes, betrayed. My trust in her willingness to tell the truth is compromised as is, clearly, her willingness to tell us the real story. I’ve always assumed that my daughter will trust us, no matter what her age or stage of development. Even, maybe especially, when she’s afraid she’ll be in trouble.

It would be too obvious — and not really true — to say that the broken glasses represent a broken trust between us. No. Instead, I see the creeping approach of ever-more-complicated parenting.

My friends who have older kids always say it’s not necessarily easier when they get older,  just different. The issues shift and become more nuanced. This feels like the beginning of that phase of parenting.

Kids lie. Our kid lies. Now it’s up to us to figure out how to model honesty and present it as a desirable trait. Trying to figure this out feels like I’m walking on a bowling ball that’s been buffed with Vaseline. We will, of course, continue to extend her our trust. But I’m also aware that she won’t learn how to tell the truth unless she’s (gently, directly) called on it when she stretches or fabricates in a way that can do damage to her relationships.

We’re going to have to work this one out as we go along. In the meantime, I’m glad the search — at least for the glasses — is over.