Aubergine

Oh, hello.

It has been a while since I've been around here.  So let me tell you where I have been.  Here, for starters: 

In January, I launched a new blog, Nurtured Mama as a place to write in a more focused way about self-care and motherhood. It took forever for me to get through the tech stuff to get the site live, but I'm really happy with it and am enjoying the small but growing community there.  Please come visit! I wrote a series of posts about the importance of dreaming in January.  In February I covered love, and this month I've been writing about rejuvenation. Next month the topic will be Simplicity.

I've been writing essays that mostly haven't seen the light of publication yet and a couple of pieces that have, like this guest post on The Happiest Mom that I'm really proud of.

I've also been enjoying this kid, who I really can no longer call my baby:

I will still be posting here from time to time, as I write things too personal or two funky for other places, but if you want to keep in more regular touch, please sign up for updates from Nurtured Mama, connect with me on Facebook, or follow me on Pinterest.  Or email me!  I'm always happy to connect with you!

Desperately seeking autumn

Where I live we have an elusive autumn. Non-natives who live in the Bay Area joke that we have no seasons here.  We do, but they are subtle, and the edges are sometimes hard to identify.  Here on the coast, where I live, we have fog in the summer and then Indian Summer in the fall and then *bam* it snaps to cold (where cold=mildly cool to most of the rest of the country).  Sometimes in between those things we get a little hint of autumn. But not so much this year.

I need something to mark the transition between summer and winter, because if I don’t mark it that onslaught of rain and chill and soggy leaves in the gutters that signals fall is over feels a bit like a slap in the face. This year, especially, I have had to go looking for signs of autumn. Summer flowers are still blooming in my garden (though they are getting scraggly). The unusually warm days this month and dry weather last spring have sent most of the trees straight from green to brown. Even the liquid amber trees, common around here, are not so vibrant.  The maples are mottled, but not vivid.  The evenings are cool, but don’t have the delicious crisp scent of fall that I miss.

It seems odd that I crave this season, as if I had lived somewhere sometime where I experienced it.  I miss it in my cells, though I have lived in this 50-square-mile patch of California all but one year of my life.  Even that first year of my life, when we lived in Virginia, my family left the country to travel before the fall. I have never lived through an east coast autumn. But still, I crave the trees turning, the apple picking, the knitting of warm socks and mittens, the stacking of wood for winter and hot chocolate to warm my fingers after and the smell of smoke from the first cozy fires.

What is fall like where you live?  Do you miss a season you no longer get to experience?

Well, if they're eating it...

Once, when I was about seven, my father fed me dog food.  Not out of neglect or malice, but because I asked him to. 

We lived in the country, in a trailer leveled off a hillside on cinderblock and iron piers.  Our dogs, two German Shepherds with the stateliness of their breed watered down by the mongrel who sired them, lived under the porch built off the side of the trailer.  In the log golden sun of the evening that summer, I would walk out with my father after dinner to feed them.  Their food was stored in a metal trashcan, like the one Oscar lived in on Sesame Street.  It had a lid fit tight enough to keep the raccoons out and I couldn’t lift it on my own. In addition, a bungee cord was hooked to the handle on either side of the can and run through the top handle of the lid.

Dad would unhook the cord and pry off the lid and I would use the plastic milk jug cut into the shape of a scoop to fill the dogs’ metal food bowl.  The dogs were always excited to be fed and the small one would bounce around us.  I tried to keep my dad between me and her so she didn’t knock me over.  Elsa, the older dog, was a bit more patient, but her head was always in the bowl before the rattle of kibble on metal finished.  The last few pieces would fall across her muzzle and leave dust in her eyebrows.

That night I stood there with the milk scoop dangling from my fingers and watched the dogs scarfing down their food.  It didn’t look exciting to me.  The pieces were round, about the size of my big toe.  They looked hard and dry.  There was always a crumbly, dusty film on the food scoop after I used it.  But the dogs were chowing down like it was the best thing they’d ever tasted.

“Daddy?”

“Yes-ee?” 

 I kept my eyes on the dog food bowls because I didn’t want to see him laugh at me. “What does dog food taste like?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”  I glanced up.  Dad looked over and lifted his eyebrows at me, but he wasn’t laughing. “Would you like to find out?”

I wrinkled my nose.  “But it is dog food. We can’t eat dog food.”

“Well, dogs eat people food sometimes.”  I couldn’t argue with him there. Elsa was always begging for whatever food I happened to carry outside with me.  “Let’s go look at the bag to see what’s in it,” Dad said.  “If it won’t make us sick, we can give it a try.”

Assured after reading the ingredients listed on the back of the 50 pound bag of kibble in the shed, that our dogs were basically eating people food in dog format I agreed that I’d try it.  But only if he did, too. Of course he would, he said.

We sat down on the wooden steps of our porch, feet in the dust at the bottom.  We each took one little ball of dog food in our fingers.  I rolled mine back and forth between index finger and thumb.  It felt hard and just a little greasy.  Not quite perfectly round.  Like it had been extruded and then sliced before whatever cooking process made it crunchy.  Little crumbles stuck to my fingers.  I smelled it.  It didn’t smell good, but not really bad, either.  It just smelled like dog food.

“You first,” I said.

“Together,” he countered.  “Ready? One, two,” he paused, to make sure I was going to continue. I nodded.

“Three.”

We each put the piece of food in our mouths.  I held mine between my molars.  I couldn’t bring myself to let my tongue touch it.  Dad was chewing his.  His beard vibrated over his cheeks as he worked the crunchy texture.  I gently bit down, just enough to break the hard ball apart. 

I can’t tell you what it tasted like. I have no memory of the flavor. I couldn’t get past my mind shouting “You are eating dog food!  That’s so gross!” And yet, I was watching my dad calmly eating dog food, too. He could have been tasting wine, or considering whether his soup needed more salt.  His face betrayed no hint of the oddity of the situation.  He swallowed.

“So, what do you think?” he asked.  I still couldn’t read his face.

I leaned over and spat the soggy mouthful into the dirt. “I can’t do it,” I said.

Dad chuckled. “Yeah,” he said, “That tasted pretty bad.  I’m glad I’m not a dog.”  He stood and brushed off the seat of his jeans before reaching for my hand.  “Ready to go in?”

Memories in the mending

Last night I sat at the kitchen table and worked my way through my mending basket. First the bra that had an escaping wire got a patch.  Then I modified another bra to add nursing clips (and yay! I have bras that fit again!).  I patched a hole in a pair of my man’s favorite pants so his underwear don’t show at the office and hemmed a pair of PJ pants that were about a foot too long for me.  

Then the hand mending: A button missing from my flannel pajama top and a stuffed chipmunk belonging to Bean that was losing her plastic glasses. Since Bean started wearing glasses last spring I have brought home a small family of stuffed animals who wear glasses, so she can see herself in her surroundings.  We have a Magenta dog, a Hello Kitty wearing big Buddy Holly frames, and this girl chipmunk who sports some hip purple specs.  Specs that were, unfortunately, not sewn well enough to withstand a toddler’s curious fingers.  They came loose within a few days and I tossed the doll into the mending basket to deal with later.

Later became much later, as happens with the mending pile.  My basket has been living on my man’s dresser, which happens to be right next to our bedroom door.  Each time I go in or out of the bedroom, I walk past it.  And if The Bean is in my arms it is right at eye level.  “Oh, no!” she exclaims, each time she sees her chipmunk with her loose glasses.  I tried to bury her better in the folds of the flannel pajamas, but one foot still showed and Bean’s “Oh, no!” reminded me day after day of my procrastination.

So last night after she was asleep I committed myself to fixing stuff.  

As I sat stitching loops around the plastic frame, connecting them back to the chipmunks ears and cheek, I felt a wave of anxiety and sadness wash over me.  I was a little girl again.  I woke up and came out of my room and saw my favorite doll on the couch.  But something was wrong with her.  Her long ears were missing!  Where did her ears go?  My mom had cut them off, following the logic of some conversation I didn’t remember having with her. She thought she was doing what I had requested, but I was devastated that my doll had been injured at my mother’s hand.

I remember the heaviness of grief in my chest, maybe for the first time in my young life. I was inconsolable. I remember holding her and crying. I was still at the age when I believed my toys were alive, had feelings and souls. Something had happened to her when she was out of my protection and it was awful.  I had not been there to protect her.  I let her down. I wanted her back the way she was before and also I understood that could never happen. I was angry at my mother but also I felt guilty.  Somehow the misunderstanding felt like my fault. I had done something that had lead to this grievous injury to my very favorite creature.  I didn’t know how to apologize or to fix it.

Even now, 35 or more years later, I feel sadness at this memory.

As I stitched my daughter’s doll, I realized that my procrastination at her repair was based on fear of unintentionally triggering my child’s grief in the same way.  It was so unlikely to happen - clearly she was more grieved by the broken glasses than she would be by them repaired - but I was afraid of making a misstep and hurting her. I know how deeply attached young children become with particular toys and it can be so fraught, as a parent, to negotiate through those feelings when communication is still so limited between us.

After I knotted off and trimmed my thread I tucked the chipmunk into the basket on Bean’s changing table, where she would be sure to see her this morning.  After we got up today, both of us still in our fuzzy pajamas, I whispered to her, “I have something for you.” She stood up and grabbed my fingers, excited for me to lead her to her surprise.  We walked down the hall to her room and I kneeled down next to her and pointed up at the basket. “Look, honey.  Mama fixed her.”  She dropped my fingers and reached up with both arms, her face open and happy as I watched her anxiously. I lifted down the doll and Bean tucked her in to her chest with one arm, swaying her body and tapping the chipmunk’s head gently in her sweet imitation of the way I snuggle her own small body to my chest in a bear hug.

This time, at least, I feel reassured that I did right by my girl.

6 things I love right now

My beautiful productive garden. 

The flowers are blooming, the veggies are producing, the bees are buzzing around and we all love being out there. This is the first year in a long time that I've had both the time and energy to put into my garden and it feels so good.

Watching this relationship develop.

Is there anything sweeter than the love between a little girl and her daddy?  Watching them together gives me a sweet lump in my throat.  

Giving myself permission to slow down.

I was pushing myself really hard toward some sort of vague goals and it just wasn't working for me.  A few weeks ago I made a conscious decision to step back, re-evaluate, and slow down a bit for the remainer of the summer.  It has given me room to do things that feed me, like read, cook, knit and draw a bit.  I feel much  more in balance and focused, as well as creative!

My easy-going girl

While I won't say she doesn't EVER throw fits, I realize I'm lucky to live with such an even-tempered toddler. She's delighted by discovery, willing to roll with whatever is going on around her (if she's rested and fed!), generous with love and laughter, and even the occasional bad mood is generally short-lived. Recently she's being enjoying taking showers with me in the morning, reading books together, pushing her baby and Tigger dolls around the house in her shopping cart, "working" in the garden in the afternoon, and snuggling in the rocking chair for nursing and songs before bed.  

Language!

I am so awed by the process of language acquisition.  Just a frew weeks ago she was grunting and pointing, and now there are words.  She has been adding a sign or word nearly a day to her repertoire.  It is mind-boggling, really.  I suddenly have access to what she's thinking about, how she makes connections between ideas, what she desires, what she thinks is funny.  While most of her words (and even some of the signs) need Mommy translation to anyone else, she is getting more and more clear every day.  Yesterday she said "kitty" with the hard consonants in all the right places and I was blown away.  She signs "motorcycle" in the back seat when she hears one growl by on the road, and says, "Dada," when she's thinking about him. She sees animals around us that I miss and tells me about them: "Dog! Kitty!"  She asks for water with her hand to her mouth and tells me she's tired by running her hand down her face.  I'm even charmed by her "no," which comes out sounding like "neuf" or  "oh, nyo!"

Last, but certainly not least, 

This long-haired man.

haiku stories (blogathon theme day)

Today other 2012 Wordcount Blogathon participants are trying their hand at haiku.  

I have never thought of myself as a poet, but the structure of haiku appeals to me.  I like the way haiku can catch a vivid scene in just a few words - an exercise I've been working on in prose writing, too.  I also like the twist or surprising juxtoposition that really good haiku contains.  

These are not really good haiku and I've taken liberties with the format a bit.  But in the spirit of participation, I offer them to you.

 

In the hardware store
I remember my father
Gifting me freedom

 

Toddler loves outside
Brightly colored plastic house
New garden decor

 

The fruit tree fills in
My room is lit shades of green
Words come faster now

 

Watching my daughter
Sift warm sand through open hands
I learn to let go

 

Grocery check-out line
Down an aisle, a baby cries
The parents all sway

10 minutes at 4pm on a Tuesday

I have put all of the baby's toys back in her toy basket and she is busy unloading them again which should give me 5-10 minutes to write.  I am kneeling at the coffee table where I can see the whole living room, though she likes to crawl around the back of the couch where I can't see her to mail her toys into the boxes there that haven't made it all the way to the garage yet which renders this vantage somewhat wasted.  There's a cat on the couch over my right shoulder, snuggled up next to my camera, and a tea cup with the sticky remains of lemon tea that I drank a while ago by my left hand.  Strewn across the surface of the table around my laptop are the the parent end of the baby monitor, a crumpled tissue, two sippy cups, a plastic toy car, the cover for my iPad which is in the other room on the charger, a DVD from someone's stocking, a travel book for the trip we are planning, a handful of Trader Joe's Sesame Sticks, and my iPhone.  I crave tidy surfaces, full attention to words, clear sinuses.  None of which I have right now.  Instead, I snack on Sesame Sticks and kneel at the coffee table pecking out the best words I can find right now, which I know are not very good.

This is the heavy part of the afternoon when the remaining day feels like forever.  Back when I was working in an office, this was the same part of the day that my energy would flag and I would head for the vending machine.  The baby is bored.  I am bored.  When the weather was good this was when I would head out the door for a walk, but it is cold out there and frankly I don't have the energy. I have made all the silly faces that I have in me today, read all the books (twice), and retrieved her from trying to put toys in the toilet and investigating the litter box more times than I can count.  I despair of what we do between now and bedtime, now that the toy basket is empty and she's here at my side again looking for Grandpa inside my computer screen. 

Mamas, what do you do to get through the draggy part of the afternoon?

At sunset

This afternoon the wind pushed the morning's grey blanket back across half the brilliant blue winter sky until it ran from one horizon to the other in a crumpled pile. Where it met the ocean at one end, as the sun sank, it looked like this.

As one year ends and another one begins, I am choosing to turn into the wide open blue and away the muzzled, muted grey.

What summer means

Last week at dinner, the day after school let out for the summer The Teenager asked me about what summer meant to me now. Now that I'm old, I think he barely stopped himself from saying, but I gave him a graceful out by suggesting our difference was simply that I'm not in school and so I don't get summer vacations. Even though I haven't had a summer vacation since college and haven't had kids in the house until this year, I have a number of teachers in my family and am so tuned to the cycle of the sun that I've always had an awareness of summer's beginning and end. So summer does mean something to me.

Summer means long slow days and long twilit evenings. Going to bed when it is still light outside. Sandals and flip flops and red toenail polish. The smells of hot asphalt and fresh cut grass and the drone of lawnmowers. Strappy cotton sundresses. Garden-gathered bouquets stuck in mason jars in every room.

Summer means popsicles and sticky fingers. Cold watermelon and seed-spitting contests. Fresh corn on the cob and buttery fingers. The season's first peach eaten over the sink with juice running down my chin. Tomatoes straight from the vine and hot from the sun. Fresh pesto made with three kinds of basil. Padding into the backyard barefoot to gather herbs and salad-makings for dinner. Homemade strawberry ice cream out of the old wooden hand-cranked ice cream maker. Burgers off the grill.

Summer means cold beers on lazy hot afternoons. Backyard barbeques with hordes of children running in and out of the house. The sounds of splashing and delight from the neighbor's pool. Sandy feet and salt-licked hair. Skin slick from sunscreen.

Summer means buying sweet bing cherries on the side of a country road and eating them with my bare feet stuck out the window of my best friend's Westie and the wind in my hair. Stargazing snuggled under blankets in the back of my pickup truck. The dusty hot smell of hiking in California's golden hills.

Summer means stretching out and slowing down. Taking time for pleasure and for dreaming. For road trips with loose destinations and time to get lost. Juicy novels and sunbeams to read them in. I remember the excitement of the last day of school, long days of summer stretched ahead of me. But even though I don't have the hard dates of school terms to bracket it, even now that I'm "old," I still think summer is magical.

20 things that happened in 2010

1. Finished my divorce.
2. Was accepted to graduate school.
3. Quit my job at Apple.
4. Lost my boy Riley.
5. Got pregnant.
6. Went to a Gorgeous Genius workshop with Lisa Sonora Beam and made a vision collage about being pregnant before I knew I was.
7. Fell in love (admitted I was in love).
8. Slept the whole month of July.  Not really, but it felt like it.
9. Read about 30 books over the summer.
10. Thought a lot about blogging.
11. Visited my 90-year-old grandparents in Canada and then drove across the desert with my baby sister toward her new home in New Mexico. Luckily I was past the morning sickness by then.
12. Started grad school.
13. Learned to nap.
14. Fired the traditional medical system and hired a home birth midwife.
15. Became an accupuncture convert.
16. Had really bad sciatica in my 5th month of pregnancy.  I couldn't walk for a week and a half and wasn't allowed painkillers.
17. Got whooping cough.  Yes really.  Right on the heels of the back issues. Wasn't allowed cough medicine.
18. Gave an accounting presentation wearing a Steve Jobs costume (while 6 months pregnant).
19. Got a B in Managerial Economics in spite of a math phobia and pregnancy brain.
20. Got rid of a bunch of stuff in my house to make room for my boyfriend and his teenage son to move in with me.

So I hope you will forgive me for my 18-month blogging break - I was a little busy.  I hope to be around here a bit more often (baby sleep permitting).