Sam's Best Understanding of Failure

Sam remembered that the last two times he played racquetball, he had melted into tears. As he played yesterday with joy and determination, the memory clearly shadowed him. Perhaps understanding "failure" is just as important as understanding "success." The following is his unsolicited evolution of thinking around the incident:

After 10 minutes of play: "I think I cried last time because I didn't have my own ball." (The two boys had one ball in play then, not two.)

After 25 minutes of play: "I think I cried before because I didn't really practice."

After 70 minutes of play: "I think I cried back then because I didn't believe I could do it."

Taking My Hat

Trinidad traced his fingers lightly over my face in the dark as the three of us snuggled into the King sized bed for our evening's rest. "Did you feel the love I just sent you?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Now I'll send you some." I poised my palm about an inch from his forehead and opened myself to channel universal love into the divine being beside me.

"Did you feel it?" I asked after a few minutes.

"Yes!" he said.

"Many wisdom traditions call this spot the Third Eye because you can see things with it that are not necessarily of the world you can see with your other two eyes."

"Really? Like what?" he asked. I began to describe some possibilities.

"Yes, but, have you seen things, too? I'm asking because I've experienced this, and I want to understand it better!"

I told him my experience and he told me his, ending by telling me that it didn't matter to him whether I believed it or not, because he knew it to be true.

I smiled. "You know, our existence takes place on many levels in this lifetime and our body is a vehicle for sundry aspects of our soul in the world. Many wisdom traditions see certain points of our bodies, called chakras, as a place that we are particularly open to give and receive energy." I paused and could feel his body, tense with excitement, beside mine. "Do you have any idea where they could be?"

"The heart," he said quickly.

"Yes, that's a big one. And one that is recognized to a large degree even in our culture -- think of the hearts that people write all over things to represent love. Do you know any others?"

"There are more?"

"Yes, several, actually," I said.

"Wow! Is one here?" He placed his hand on the top of his head.

"Yes."

"And around my eyes?"

I asked him to point. He moved his hand around both eyes and landed just above and between them. "Yes," I said. "I like how you used your hand to feel."

He smiled broadly, then his face eased into the serious expression of inward searching as he slowly ran his hand down the center of the length of the body and identified every other of the several chakras that are familiar to me. I affirmed his discovery. He switched hands and felt each one again. "Are they in your hands, too?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. Trinidad beamed and hugged me hard over and over, telling me how much he loved me. I held him tight to me and smiled. As I released him, I told him that many of my friends knew much more about chakras and energy movement than I did.

"But let us not ever forget how much you know, yourself, when you are open to hearing it, Trinidad. The same is true for all of us. And your energy, little one, is strong like the wind. Like a very big wind. You will spend your life learning to understand and focus it so that it may bring good and healing to the world. It is an honor to see you witness it now."

He grinned at me so I thought his face would crack open, and then he darted a hand out and stole my hat off my head.

"Got your hat!" he said.

I'm Dreaming of a Used Christmas....

Every value of my own that is embraced by my children fills me with awe and is worth a celebration.

"Mom? Tomorrow can we glue this piece back on the Jumanji game we just unwrapped? It's supposed to go here, see? It just got torn. It was like that when we unwrapped it."

"Sure, honey. Glad you thought of it."

"I'm guessing this came from Goodwill!" says Sam, smiling proudly.

I grin back. "Actually, it came from S--. We guessed you'd like it, so I just wrapped it up."

"We sure do!" they said.

The skateboard top quality and already broken in, the well-loved snare drum, kindly refurbished.... We're not the first, and we may be the last stop for these gifts that Santa brings -- but I doubt it.

Infectious Humor?

Sam got his blood drawn today for a Lyme disease titer so we can rule out that as a possible cause for the bizarre infection he's developed at the site of a tick bite from several months ago. "That was fun," he said as he put on his coat, dropping the jaws of the entire laboratory staff. He'd really enjoyed watching his blood go into the tube and observing the entire blood drawing process.

"You know, sweetheart," I told him as we put on our bike helmets, "many people believe -- and I do, too, sometimes -- that chronic illnesses can have something to do with a part of your life that is not healthy, balanced, or integrated with love. Your doctor reminded me of this today. So, I'm wondering, is there any part of your life that you don't like, anything that could hold you back from healing?"

Sam held my hand as we walked slowly down the long hall. When we got to the end, he turned to face me. "Too much greens," he said. "If I ate more candy, I think I'd be better."

From Trinidad....

A horse smells like it is.

The Lost

Scene: Pizza Parlor indoor playground, birthday party.

One toddler, escorted by an older child, returned to her mother, sobbing. "Some girl pushed her down and pulled her hair." A different child cried from the indoor playground, and his mother jumped up to attend. "Now the girl is riding A--," reported the older child.

"Oh, sometimes pretty mean kids come here," said one mother. "Especially in the afternoon when school's out. We don't come here much. Someone's always getting hurt. There are some mean ones."

I sat another moment by the fire and let this all sink in, giving silent empathy to myself and the toddler crying beside me. I was keenly aware that no "answer" arose in me. I felt worried and sad about the language around "mean" and "nice" I was hearing, sad about the violence that had occured, and still I sat, completely blank beyond emotional resonance. It would be easier, I thought, if my moral structure supported me in taking some stand. A clarity of right and wrong that would tell me just what to do and feel. Not that I wished for it. I just noticed the dizzy, confused feeling I had about not understanding on a deeper level what occured, considering it had affected so many at heart. I wanted to contribute and be clearer about my feelings.

I returned to the indoor playground. A group of children and an adult holding a different sobbing toddler stood in a circle. "She did it," several children said over each other, pointing to a girl at one end. "She keeps pulling at people's arms, hitting them and pinching. She sat on him."

The toddler continued to wail unconsolably. His mother held him and shook her head, appearing at a loss. I took a look at the culprit.

Three feet tall with whispy blonde hair and Coke bottle lenses in her wire-framed glasses, this was not your postcard bully. The child's mouth contorted at the edges. I had the sense that she was separate from the group in more ways than one. This was a child who needed and offered more than was expected in the world. I have worked with "special needs" kids enough to see them from a distance. Despite her inability to connect in a meaningful way, this little girl felt the pain that she thought she had caused.

I crossed the circle and sat beside her. "Hi. I'm guessing that you want a friend, too, is that right?"

She nodded. "You didn't want him to cry, huh?"

"Sad," she said.

"Were you really wanting to play, and when you touched him, he cried?" I asked. She nodded.

I offered more words of empathy and gave some silently as well to both the girl child and the toddler. The little girl declined my offer of a lap, but suddenly lay down beside me, her face against the mat, welcoming my hand upon her back. We sat quietly for awhile. Then she stood up. I offered her an example of how I expected the other children would like to be touched. She took it in with large eyes but no words.

I called a couple of the older children down. Trinidad was one. I explained that the girl had trouble connecting with children with her body, but she really wanted to play and be included. Would they be willing to support her by showing her how they wanted to be touched and by staying with her in the climbing structure (the dang thing is too small for adults) so everyone could be safe in their play? Trinidad made a fierce face at me and said, "No," irritated to be interrupted in his focused play. I assured him that I was not making a demand. He looked relieved and ran off. Two older girls with soft eyes said they would be willing. A crowd of smaller children stood around them and heard my explanation of what I guessed had happened in the violent encounters.

"Everyone learns how to connect with their bodies at some point," I said. "She needs a bit of help just now. It's kind of like playing with a puppy." Two children lit up with understanding. "How do puppies play?" I asked.

"They jump and bite!" said a three-year-old girl, smiling broadly.

"That's right. And it takes awhile for you to show them how you want to be touched and played with. They're just trying to connect."

"Yeah, you're right," said a boy. "And she doesn't listen when my Mom tells her." This, I guessed, was the girl's brother. I asked her name, as it came out quite unintelligible to my ear from her own lips. He said her name was M---.

In agreement and good will, the troupe of children climbed back into the plastic tunnels with M-- in tow. She did not grab or pull, but watched them carefully and stayed close. No more cries sounded.

After a quarter of an hour, a woman entered the play area and called to M--. "She's up here!" replied a girl in our group.

My heart leapt to hear that the children had taken her into their group so much as to speak for her. Partly because I did not feel lost anymore -- the path of empathy is always with purpose. Partly because I could see the gift of love and belonging that this little girl received as she was included in play despite the challenges she offered.

And partly because I remember being a lost little girl with Coke bottle lenses.

Out of the Jungle

"We are connected here," Sam, my five-year-old, tells me, pointing to his belly.

"We are?" I ask. "Because that's the part of me that gave birth to you?"

"Yes," he says. "Our organs are still connected."

"Sometimes I think so, too," I say quietly.

Sam does not want to grow up or for me to grow older. He could hardly bear to be just the "shopkeeper" with me as a "customer" last night when we played a pretend game of Motorboard (fake surfing on sticks on the carpet). In the end, his heart melting at our connection, he asked to play my child.

This morning, all three of us snuggled under the covers and read Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. It was my first reading. Somehow it did not appear in my childhood canon. As we read the first story, "Mowgli's Brothers," Trinidad and I paused frequently to take in the beauty of the words, the wisdom of the wolf-pack leader, Akela, and the depth of tragedy in the plight of Mowgli and Bagheera as they navigated worlds to which they did not entirely belong. This line also caught my attention: "And [Mowgli] grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat." Mmmm.

At the end of the story, my heart splayed open in awe. As I staggered in the prose of a master, I noticed that my tears were not alone. Mowgli finished his speech to the wolf pack, acknowledging his presence as a leader in the hierarchy beyond the jungle, waved the fire before the council to punctuate his point, and then dissolved into tears as the pack departed. I saw a tear trickle from the corner of Trin's eye. It is the first I've witnessed in response to a story. Just as Mowgli's tears were seen by Bagheera the panther as a rite of passage into Manhood for Mowgli (and I am touched by Kipling's sensitivity here, again), Trinidad's tears marked an awareness and understanding of nuance that we have not shared before.

For an hour after, Trinidad and I chased the tragic aliveness of this tale, the title (who were "Mowgli's Brothers," really?), and the choices of Akela, the wolf-pack leader. "It seems to me that in our culture, people are not taught to fight with wisdom, but instead with violence," Trinidad told me.

Sam began to fidget and asked why we kept going on about the beauty of this story. He pulled himself into my lap and began to poke at me, connecting by body our souls. Looking into Trinidad's slate blue eyes across the table, I could see reflected the territory that he and I are now stepping into. With compassion, both of us rested a hand on Sam, knowing he could not understand the connection of minds moving out of the jungle, thoughts beyond the Mother Wolf.

We are Growing.

Going Natural

I sit with the children by the woodstove, gold and red lighting up their faces. A blanket is spread before us with the empty shells of filberts and white paper skins of garlic. They crack nuts to grind into hazelnut butter while I break the last heads of garlic to be planted. We sit for hours talking, cracking, peeling. Bliss.

It is Sunday morning. The flour mill has arrived by mail. We take it apart, wash it lovingly, and begin to grind our first batch of flour. It is an effort. The boys can barely turn the handle while standing on a stool. We are making our traditional Sunday morning breakfast, and we are hungry. The flour is coaxed slowly from the cast iron disks that grind it, 1/4 teaspoon at a time.

We are having fun. We are taking turns. We are severely denting our only kitchen table because I did not remember to cushion the clamp with a cutting board. One hour later, I am the last Mohican at the grind, sweating and turning the crank nearly naked, huffing and puffing. The children are barking at each other and threatening war. It is nearly noon, and I have a few cups of flour ground. "Use the electric thing," says Sam. And I do.

Wednesday night. The soup is made from our own squash and potatoes, carrots and tomatoes. The greens came from the plot where they still grow out back. I am, in mid-December, beginning to get thin on what I can offer our family from the garden. Next year, as every year, I will dedicate more space to winter crops. I believe my family is fed in spirit by eating local.

And there is a price. Year round, the time taken to bring in the leaf mulch, plant, harvest, weed and water is time my children want me at their side. I have hoped that they will grow into the rhythm of farming their own food. I have hoped that the organic shape of this part of our lives would nurture. At times, I mourn that they are often inside playing with the Tamagotchi and calling to me while I work our urban farm. I can't imagine trying to run a full-scale production.

A friend tells me that my children would benefit from a cleaner house. "Keep a distinction between outdoors and in," she tells me, essentially. She is steeped in the Waldorf tradition. There, the fields are represented by puffy green bushes with buff colored wheat, all riding a pink sunrise. The mud does not come in the kitchen door. The leaves do not migrate to the hearth. There is somehow time in this soft pastel landscape for mothers to ground themselves indoors where they remove their dear ones clothing to hang by the fire and serve herbal tea in a spotless kitchen.

It is a beautiful vision. But where is my family in this? Where is the sweat, the conflict, the stretching periodically through the day to consider the needs of all, the exhaustion and the letting go?

My world is not Waldorf portrait material. To be honest, most of us Colliers would rather live in a barn. Perhaps that is an indication of our station in evolution. We ask also for a cozy fire and access to hot water, a good friend to lean on, and food from the garden (no matter how warm), and we will eat it, grow, bicker, doubt, love and be grateful for what is ours.

Longing

"....just waitin' for my ship to come in..." I sang to myself quietly, washing the dishes.

"What's that song you wrote about?" asked my eight-year-old son, Trinidad.

"Oh... it's about longing, about wishing you could have something that always seems to be just out of reach. It's about the frustration I feel in not just sitting with gratitude for what I have. There is so much to be thankful for, and much of it I wanted and received, but still there's this longing! It seems to be part of the human condition, a yearning to touch the universal spirit of Love, and we always try to put it in some earthly pursuit, whether a person or a thing. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," he said. "Everyone longs for something. And you'll never long for something you already have."

He's got it.

Adventures In Leafdom, Part Two: Finders Keepers

The fun didn't end as O-- rolled away. I gathered my things to go inside for a telephone appointment and to put on a movie for the kids. To my surprise, Trinidad would not have it. He told me that he would be staying outside and working on the leaves while I worked inside on the phone. He had a goal to reach. He agreed to put on the movie for Sam (National Velvet -- now isn't that a warm-your-heart classic?), field any of his questions or needs, and then return to the leaf pile.

Wow. Is this what it's like when they grow up? Amazing. I took him up on it, of course. He was good as gold, except when the kids from next door suddenly came out to play, and Trinidad was distracted enough to join them, pitchfork in hand. I glanced up at one point to see him brandish the fork threateningly (in play) once and had to interrupt my call for a quick reminder that the fork is ONLY to be used on leaves. What a transition point this is for Trinidad -- torn between the world of pretend while in connection with friends and the world of tools and adult-scale meaningful work.

Interestingly, the topic of paid work only came up peripherally, and Trinidad understood that we had made our goal together as a family piece of work, not offered up for payment (very little is, at our house). He only shared his curiosity around what I thought his work might be worth if he did it for someone else. I told him that if he proved a steady focus, I guessed it would be around $5/hour.

As dusk fell, Sam joined us again while we threw everything we had into the last hill of damp leaves. When the Leaf Guy dumped it all the day before, we took note of a glass beer bottle that fell in as well. Sam's fork hit something hard that clinked.

"Oh, there's the bottle," I said.

"I don't think so," he said. He stooped down.

"Maybe it's an aluminum can," I said.

"Nope," he said. "It's a quarter!"

"I'll be darned!" I smiled.

"And another," he said, beaming. And another, and another, and another. Both boys fell to digging and recovered $6 worth of quarters and a wrapper from a quarter roll. Can you believe it?

"Oh, here's that bottle," I told them, pulling out the brown glass whole.

"Yep, mom. You found that because that's what you expected to find. We expected to find money, so that's what we found."

Then I found the can. Hmm. What does that say for the year I found a steaming dead animal in the leaf pile? Was that back when I thought that moving leaves really stinks?

The boys saved their collection on the porch and continued work until they couldn't contain their excitement and plans for the money (they bought each other Christmas presents that they opened promptly the next day). Both headed inside.

All of this excitement bought me another hour and a half in the leaves by myself after dark. I saw them in the kitchen as I passed with each wheelbarrow load. They asked if they could have a glass of Egg Nog. I agreed, and they very responsibly doled each other out a small cup.

On return trips to the back garden, I noticed the carton still on the table, and glasses still tipping to nearly sated lips. After an hour, I asked if they could put the Nog away. Within minutes, both boys were burning the sugar high, taking turns spinning one another until they fell.

Trinidad returned to the leafpile to use the rest of his sugar on his work while Sam ran around the house bouncing off the walls. Seda came home and spelled me so I could cook dinner. The pile disappeared completely as I set warm plates on the table and everyone gathered round.

Trinidad, looking so adult-like, leaned his cheek on one hand and said how good he felt. And exhausted. I ran a bath with Epsom salts and later rubbed arnica into our wrists. There is nothing to bring a family together like working a common goal.

Adventures In Leafdom, Part One: Stranger in a Strange Land

Two dumptruck loads of leaves in the driveway. Me, wondering as I do each year, how it will all be moved. They are the first of a total of 5-6 loads I will take, clearing two at a time until all of them mulch my garden beds and paths. This year, two neighbors also ordered leaves for me to mulch the beds I've cultivated in their yards. My work cut out for me.

At almost 10:30 a.m., I headed out with a pitchfork and a song. It was almost noon when Sam decided to put on his cowboy boots and come help me. I asked if he thought we could clear half by the end of the day. He made it a goal. Trinidad joined us a bit later and decided that the whole pile should be gone by then. Okay!

Friends arrived to drop off a garlic press we'd left behind shortly after noon. As we chatted for a moment, a black man rode by on his bike. I smiled at him, as I do at all of the neighbors I know and haven't met. He stopped his bike and spun around.

"I haven't ever seen a smile like that!" he said. "I've gotta' talk to you."

"I've got guests at the moment. Can you come back in ten minutes?"

"You bet!" he said, and wheeled away.

Half an hour later, he returned, and Trinidad and I were prepared to give this high energy man some empathy. He told us he'd just been chased out of the DariMart parking lot by the cops who couldn't understand his intense disparity about the economy. They thought he was "attacking."

He told me he needed to buy an RV for $500 or less. I thought to myself that I might know someone who was selling (in wonder at the potential serendipity), but I waited to hear more of his story.

O-- hailed from a big city back east, where he had earned a great deal of money in his work dealing drugs. He'd gotten tired of being shot at and seeing friends and family jailed, so he moved west with his girlfriend and became a Rastifarian. Needing to pay the bills and visit his girlfriend's family, they headed to Oregon where she now lives with her family and their 2 year old son. O just got out of a community college. He is homeless and looking to build trust and find work in our community.

Trinidad went to heat up some leftovers for his lunch while I spoke with him about the friend with a potential leaky RV. I decided to call on it right away, and it did appear to be available. I put phone in O's hand and made an informal introduction.

Something funny happened at that juncture. This civilized but intense young man who had been telling me his heartfelt story with eloquence suddenly shifted into a different persona as he "met" the man who might help him.

"Wha'sup?" he said in a deep voice, head cocked. Pause. (I imagined the man on the other end meeting him with some bewilderment in a proper British accent.)

"This's O--!" said my new friend. Guessing that the RV owner was still confused on his end, I heard O-- repeat his name. At this point, I left them and returned, grinning, to my leaves.

The boys and I continued our work and O-- tried to help after making plans to see the RV within 24 hours. He took our half-filled barrows and dumped them with vigor until we all began making strong requests that he let us fill them, first. He liked to keep things moving.

Before he left, I sang him a song I wrote and called "My White Girl Spiritual." He laughed at the name and listened. As I sang with my heart full on, he turned away and bowed his head in the spirit of my words and tone. It is a song of struggle and repentence, a song of longing and acceptance. I wish I could find a way to put it on the blog. At the end, he said, "Well. Now I didn't think you would do that. You are not your average Wh--" he stopped.

"White girl?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "But I knew that when you told me to come back in ten minutes. You are a blessing."

"You are a blessing to me," I said. "It is tragedy to have a gift to give, a song to sing, a smile to share and no one to share them with. Your receiving is a gift to me."

He looked at me long. "White and black," he said.

"We both have to give and receive to build this bridge. I thank you for coming by, neighbor."

The Evolution of Pie Crust (and My Own)

At the tender age of nineteen, I treated my fiance to a rare spectacle. As he watched with patience and curiosity, I pressed a ball of dough together as it fell apart at exactly the same rate. I added water. It stuck like glue. Then flour. It hardened. I tried to roll it out. The blasted thing crumbled.

I stomped up and down. I growled and shrieked. I pounded the dough and the table with my fists. Then, to my future husband's wide-eyed amazement, I shot-putted our purported future pumpkin pie crust across the room.

I don't throw tantrums often, and that one made family history.

Since then, he (and all other dear friends and family) granted me a wide berth the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have tried many recipes -- those with butter (too hard), palm oil (eeuuww), coconut oil (hmm.), vegetable oil (cardboard), and Crisco (God, don't tell, but it tasted good....). I have tweaked recipes and followed them, refrigerating, freezing, pre-baking, and resting doughs. I have eaten them all, even raw, as a penance.

But this Thanksgiving was, indeed, a first. Seda (who once was my husband and now sports the apron and heels of Ms. Cleaver) volunteered to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And perhaps since I socialized her harshly around pie-making, or maybe because she regards with due respect my personal pilgrimage to enlightenment through oil saturated dough, she said: "But you will make the pies?"

And I agreed.

I got on the phone with a dear friend (Thanksgiving itself), and we chatted about everything from the earth-shattering to the spoon clattering that night. It's all the same, all one, we laughed. I threw away the measuring cups after I lost count of the flour. I put in just enough butter to feel kind of right. (What had I to compare it to?) And then I put in water until it all came together.

Sam said, "Look! It's stretchy!" Well, for those of you familiar with pie dough, you will know that is not a good sign. I smiled.

"Yes, I said, and it will probably bake up hard as a rock, but I will chew and chew and think on how grateful I am to have such a good friend to talk with while making pie crust.

Guess what? It's hard, alright. It doesn't taste half-bad, but cutting a piece would be named an Olympic event if the pie only lasted long enough. And every bite I chew with gratitude for the joyful chat that was mine.

"It's a Concrete Crust!" beamed Trinidad. "Really hard to live with. Get the joke, Mom? Hard?

I'm still laughing.

P.S.
Seda posted recent pics of the family on her lovely Thanksgiving blog post.

Wisdom From Trinidad...

"Mom, there should be a John Holt book about how adults learn, because most children would like to know that!"

P.S.
John Holt, previously mentioned sporadically, is the author of How Children Learn, How Children Fail, and Learning All The Time, amongst many others. He is called the "Father of Unschooling" for his iconoclastic views on education. I have been rereading him lately....

Notes on Teachers and Learners

After swimming class last night, a discussion arose around the engagement and demeanor of the boys' two different teachers. As we discussed the qualities that these teachers of children possess, Trinidad said, "If I was a teaching something, I'd want to have the same amount of joy as the kids and if I didn't, I'd stop teaching."

Last week, the boys took flying lessons from a friend. At one point, seven children formed a line to Sam's dresser where they climbed up and launched themselves airborne to land on the children's king-sized bed (flying). I entered the room, wiping my hands on my apron. "Are you children jumping off the dresser onto the bed?" I demanded.

"Yes," said two children, smiling shyly.

"Oh. Good!" I said and turned back to preparing dinner.

Later in the evening, the boys refused to participate in any more lessons because their "teacher" wouldn't let them talk or make sound effects as she spoke for several minutes at a time. She wanted full focus only on her and her instruction. She felt bewildered about their mutiny, and did not know how to let go of her role or shift while staying connected. She had collected pages of notes in number-letter code as to their progress, but more importantly to her, the notes clocked their obedience and where they stood in her esteem.

We had a talk about it together. What needs were the boys trying to meet by talking or entertaining themselves with sounds? (Sam had been repeating to himself several of the witches' lines from MacBeth, and Aviv found the soliloquy disturbing. "That's because you're in Waldorf school," said Trinidad. "Everything in Waldorf school is a certain way and this is not that way.") What need was the "teacher" trying to meet by telling them to be quiet? The boys were clear that they would enjoy the flying lessons if they were sure the instructor was really considering their needs as people, too. The "teacher" felt frustrated, as her primary role model was her own classroom teacher, Miss K. And Miss K always just told people to be quiet if she couldn't focus and hear herself talk.

A visual of Miss K's was described where a leafless tree was drawn on the board and leaves were added to it when children did what they were told. "And we don't like it if Miss K is not pleased," she said. Our young friend assumed that the boys would be as concerned about her pleasure when she was in the role of teacher and had not much thought about their needs beyond the excitement of flight.

"I want to talk less and fly more," said Sam.

"I am beginning to like the idea of public school less and less," said Trinidad.

With more clarity about how to meet her students' needs for engagement and consideration, this young "teacher" proceeded with the joy of sharing her skill, though, she noted, this was nothing like School anymore.

I remember

I remember
falling in love, each
time the first and
last, dancing into
sapphire skies, feeling
the edges of clouds with my eyes
bent on dreaming,
waving lightness and
dark to choreograph
twilight, driving
innocence into
storm, stretching and
soaring pink, blues, and gold,
inviting the heart to tumble
in, find refuge, and be lost.

It is mine to remember.
Every sky,
a soul falling
in love.

Traipsing 'Tween Worlds

We pledged between the three of us to be explorers of the Caves, there at the Skinners Butte rock wall on the edge of downtown Eugene. We looked up at the forty feet of sheer pillared stone, green hillside and oak forests sloping away from the top. "This is one of the most beautiful places in our city," I said.

We climbed the outside earthen edge and peered out over our metropolitan area. Industrial pillars belched dark clouds over concrete paths and square buildings. Cars and trucks inched like ants over highways that snaked its outer rims and doubled back to shopping malls parked at the river's edge. "This is one of the ugliest views of our city," I said.

We climbed the rock way up, poking into dark nooks, unearthing mysterious skeletons and brittle vegetation, imagining the demise of these cave creatures before us. Sam saw a Saber Tooth cat and he and I sprang lightly down across the rocks, drawing our swords. As the big cat made its escape, we turned to practice on each other, brandishing our invisible weapons as we darted and weaved at the foot of the stone fortress.

"I cut your sword in half!" shouted Sam. "Here's a new one."

After another minute's entanglement: "Now I've cut your pants. Here... stitch!" He bound the torn cloth with invisible needle and thread.

"I'll play easy on you now, Mom," he whispered, apologetically.

Trinidad, above, discovered the origin of the cave paintings (I [heart] Mark) and turned to scratching rock upon rock with an artist's care.

What would natives do?

Sam took me from our Camp to share an invisible map on a large post. After he pointed out our location in respect to the street (across which, they have told me, you can look into the Other World that we came from), the Dark Forest, and the Caves. As I turned away, I noticed aloud that the Park Rules were posted beside it.

"What do they say?" asked Sam.

I read them silently to myself (no camping, park opened now, closed then, etc.), and only after I spoke these words did I hear them myself: "Well, to be honest, they don't say anything useful for us. They must have been written for somebody else."

I am caught in that moment between worlds, their world and mine, magical and urban.

"One is concrete, one is stone," Trinidad tells me. "The stone will last longer, but even this will probably be gone in a thousand years."

Oh my children, hold them gently.

Heavenly

Can I tell you about life in and under a cedar, two boys barefoot sprawled across branches that bend as if they were made of solid wind?

Can I describe the smell of damp earth beneath us, a picnic lunch scattered with school supplies (each child with his own first binder, pencils, and sharpeners), while University students walk by, not privvy to our hideout, not knowing that a bonafide Mother resides in that cedar twenty feet up, her children resting on branches below her?

"I think I will only talk about Our Tree quietly so that no one else hears," says Trinidad as we leave. "Otherwise, I'm afraid that what's natural and beautiful here will be spoiled by other people coming too much."

I see the sadness in his eyes. I'm guessing that he would also love to share this magical place, that he so wants others to honor the space in a way that is gentle to the tree and her community.

We hang long from branches so that our bellies stretch out thin and bare. We climb so that our hair is taken up in the wind. We laugh so that the sound of it echoes through the green as if from the tree herself, and perhaps it does. We drum, the tone shifting, as we gently rap the branches close to and away from her thick, furry trunk.

We are music here.

Don't Try To Teach Me A Thing!

"I would like it if when I'm reading you stand on the other side of the room and don't help me unless I ask for it," said Trinidad.
Months later, I read Jon Holt describing a trained (and then Untrained) Reading Teacher who "does almost nothing... almost never points out or corrects a mistake." (Learning All the Time, p. 3). Hmm. I guess my son's request has some authority behind it after all. (!)

"Did you teach your baby sign language?" I asked a friend.
"Yes -- with the first of our kids," she replied, "And it really helped. All that communication!"
"You didn't teach your second?" I asked.
"No, she refuses to make our signs, but we always know what she wants."
"You don't think you would have known what your first child wanted if she had made her own signs?"
"Well. That's true. But it was so much fun!"
"Yes. 'Look what I taught It to do!'... Why is it more important to us that we teach them to speak in our symbols instead of trusting that symbols of communication will organically develop (leading eventually to the spoken word)?"


"We will be done soon with recording, which I consider to be the dessert, and get down to the real work and rhythmic practice of music in January..." said my music teacher. "Why are you making faces? What's going on for you?"
"What's going on is that my personal evaluative process supports my learning and growth just as much in this time of recording as it does in any other musical training you have offered to date. I do not wish to distinguish any part of this effort as "work" or something I will engage in with less joy than I am now experiencing. You have taught me to relax, to let go the tension in my body that I may stay present with and open to the music, note for note. I have been striving toward that ideal and listening for the places where I fall short in the recordings. I have adjusted and adjusted and adjusted again. We will leave this season of recordings and fall into the next season of fingers to the keys of piano and matching tones with voice, but I will never learn differently than this way I am teaching myself now. I will keep taking in what I am ready to learn. Would you be willing to use some other word than 'work' to describe this change in seasons?"
"Of course," he said. And later: "Wow! Your piano has really improved! Everything you're learning in voice (our focus the past few months) you've taken to the keyboard!"

Well, yah.

I took the boys rock climbing. They had never done it before, other than during short free climbs at the park. They have been swimming, rollerblading, and biking constantly as of late. Belays tied, they scrambled to the top of the forty foot+ synthetic "rock wall" in seconds. "My gosh, are you sure they haven't done that before?" asked the instructor.

I, myself, climbed the most difficult route there in less than 5 minutes. Yoga on the vertical.

Everything is everything is everything else. What if we stop structuring learning and packaging concepts in ways that they cannot interact? What if my yoga practice is a dance practice is a meditation for conscious parenting? What if by cooking, I generalize to using carpentry tools, fixing cars, sewing clothes? What if the more I generalize across activities, the quicker and more effective I become at the process of generalization itself?

Dang, I could be handy.

If all the world were that empowered, could we let go our terror and hold hands in celebration?

Neighbors

Last week, the boys and I started something new. We've been talking about doing something like this for several years (some seeds take longer than others to germinate), and now that the bare bones of home and garden are firmly in place, we find ourselves with an easy space of time each week to do it in. We are sharing soup with our neighbors.

I like to make soup during the cold season. I throw in whatever I find in the garden -- pumpkin, apple, fava bean greens, potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, eggplant (yes, even now!), kale, tomatoes -- some black-eyed peas, fresh herbs, and call it good. It usually is.

After the morning efforts of chopping and stewing are complete, we load up my basket and backpack with hot 1/2 gallon jars, bowls, and spoons, and head off down the road. We stop at the places one can usually find those in need of a hot meal and some lovin' -- the intersection at Albertson's, under the Amazon Parkway bridge, the picnic tables behind the community center -- and we break bread there with our neighbors over a steamy bowl.

We have heard some stories. Mills shut down, work injuries, children dead, the struggle of living on the streets, and always present but often stowed away so it is not drunk "in front of the children" (mine), is the Bottle. Sedative and millstone, its affects are tragically kaleidoscopic on the lives of those who have been grateful for our listening and sharing.

Last week, we swapped stories with a young man at the skateboard pit. As I described how I made the soup, he nodded appreciatively at the skill I appeared (!) to have in balancing flavors with herbs and vinegar. "Not your first day at the rodeo!" he said. He offered the boys encouragement as they rollerbladed back and forth.

Yesterday, coming home with a surplus, we caught an elderly neighbor we had not met before as she unlocked her door. An offer of soup was welcome, and I felt so relieved to help, having seen her struggle to mow the front lawn two months ago on a day that I did not easily find the space to offer a hand.

Finally, we had the great pleasure of taking the last half gallon to my own grandmother who lives in Springfield (aren't I lucky?) and sharing a meal with her. The boys listened to stories from her life and the Great Depression, then shared their art and play with the woman who has shepherded more young souls than just about anyone I know.

I am so grateful to experience a sense of abundance in time, energy, and to some degree resources that I may give and receive with true joy. I am grateful for my children who share my dream (as long as it includes slides and skateboard pits) to connect and love within our community.

And I am grateful to share it all here.

Halloween, Day and Night

Sam: Could someone stay home and give out candy and you come with us trick-or-treating?
Me: You want Maddy to stay home?
Trin: No! I want Maddy to come -- wait! Actually, Maddy is of the opinion that we should only trick-or-treat up and down half the street, Mom. What is your opinion?

Me: (to Seda) I made Jerusalem Artichokes here, for you to eat. It's quick and easy and healthy for Halloween. I'm really excited because I'd like to plant some for next year. These are a trial. They are completely effortless to grow, they're pretty, and they're a good starch --
Seda: Hmm. (tastes one) So, what's for dinner?
Me: Oh, you are fired as my Permaculture Paragon.
Sam: Trinidad almost poked my eye out with his sword!
Me: Do be careful. That would not have been a Happy Halloween.

Me: Trinidad, please hold still while I'm braiding your hair with these wires [to be Pippi Longstocking]. The sword -- please, Trin, I can't focus while that thing is swinging past my face. Could you put it away?

(Trick or Treating)
Lu: Oh, it's you! And don't you look wonderful? A pirate and...
Trin: Pippi Longstocking.
Lu: Yes! I see it now.
Me: And I'm a Domestic Superhero.
Lu: (laughs) Oh, well that fits. Look, all I have are these (Snickers)... will Mom let you have...?
Me: Lu. We're Trick or Treating.

Me: (walking down a darkened street, boys with candy bags swinging) Sam, your sword almost went up my nose.
Sam: Sorry, Mom!

(Halloween gathering of adults around a lantern as we biked past in costume one block from where we live.)
All: Come back! Don't you want some candy?
Me: Oh sure, we'll circle back.
Middle-aged Drunken Witch: Wow! What are you?
Me: Domestic Superhero. Check it out. If you wear an apron backwards, you can fly.
MDW: Oooohh. You have great legs. You know, I think I'm in love with you.
Me: Hmm.
MDW: (2 inches from my face) No, really, I am falling in love with you right now.
Me: Don't worry. You'll get over it. My husband did.
MDW: Well, here's the thing. (Leaning so close that I stand taller over her as she hisses in stage whisper) I'm a Woman.
Me: Yeah. That was his problem, too.
MDW: (Straightens, looks at me cock-eyed twice. I smile.) Well, his loss.
Man Scantily Clothed in Animal Skins: Have a candy.
Me: Thank you.
MSCAS:I know you from somewhere. Oh, yeah -- your garage sale. I bought a trowel from you.
Me: Is that possible? A trowel? Was it plastic?
MSCAS: No, it was a trowel. For laying cement. Not a girlie trowel.
Me: (peal of laughter, then dead serious) Watch your language, mister.

Sam: I have enough candy! We can go home!



Happy birthday to my dearest Grandma Cele who loved to dress up and go Trick-or-Treating for cocktails. I had one in your honor tonight! My love and gratitude for your presence in my life.

Naughty?

Okay, I've been asked by the Universe to explain myself (what kind of a quirky sense of humor do you have?!), so I'll attempt to venture in that direction without getting too heady.

When I heard Trinidad holler out to the world and his Grandma that she should not forget to pick her nose, my heart warmed to witness his desire to connect. I imagined that his words landed with her completely, but I felt amused, a need for irony (yes, I may be the first to put it on the needs list, but it's big for me) met in imagining that these words did not meet needs for connection in others. Under the irony is a need for growth I anticipate being met as we are invited to further explore and connect more deeply with ourselves and each other.

Truth is, I deeply value acceptance -- for him, for me, for us all. Part of my amusement stems from my firmly held belief that love conquers all, at least in the big picture. I actually find hope in such opportunities as this when I imaginine someone being uncomfortable with certain words/phrases, but still touched by the spirit and presence of a child, particularly in a child's willingness to play with language. This tornness, as uncomfortable as it is, asks us to clarify what stands between us and the full compassion we would like to embrace. We are invited to join a conversation with ourselves and the world; what is truly alive in us, in our neighbors? How can we live most authentically and in our integrity?

To play is, in itself, a courageous act. I see it as a spontaneous exploration of the world in ourselves with trust that reconnection can occur. Play demonstrates a willingness to be fully present, usually with needs for fun and connection most alive, without worry about how one is received. It represents a trust in one's own ability to either accept and love oneself or to at least stay present as others express their needs unmet.

This playfulness, appearing both in my birthday poem ("To fool, to fool...."), and in much of the time I spent with my mom, reflects a strain of wisdom-in-presence and connection that I deeply value. The "fool" of Shakespeare's day was more than an entertainer. Again, I point to the path of King Lear.

I am aware in this moment that the strategies I reported engaging in are ones that could leave others bewildered. But this very shaking up of the predictable is something I can't help but enjoy, at least in part, even as it can bring its own share of pain. The order we impose in our "appropriate language" that attempts to touch a need for meaning in us is dependent upon the predictable, and is too easily toppled.

I would rather embrace the dynamic of connection over the predictability of propriety in any arena. I think that the practice of opening our ears and hearts to the deeper needs that drive playfulness is one that will serve us as a race and contribute to our harmony on this planet.

I love to turn a thing upside down to get to the bottom of it. At the University, my Chaucer teacher pointed out (in... was it The Wife of Bath's Tale?) that she had become cultured and educated enough to only appreciate appropriate language for most of the years of her scholarship, and it took getting a Ph.D in Medieval Studies to bring her back to an appreciation for gutter humor.

Subversive, at worst. And I wonder... would someone be willing to post a quick comment to let me know if this explanation is a contribution in clarity to why I value play with language?

We Saw My Mother Off

Yes, "off" she always has been, and "off" we'll always be, thanks to genetics that have graced the lot of us with beauty, resourcefulness, fierce independence, and a world view skewed by one drastically ironic lens. (Yes, she's responsible for the makeshift Halloween costume I'm pictured in below.)

We saw my mother off after a glorious birthday weekend together. Begrudgingly, we dropped her with her friend at the friend's daughters house in an upscale neighborhood where all lawns stood green and clipped to perfection. As I dug for my car keys, Trinidad, already missing his grandma very much, rolled down his window and shouted the finest endearment he could muster: "Don't forget to pick your nose!"

I imagined the neighborhood stiffening as they heard it. My mom laughed. I continued the search for my keys. He rolled down his window again and shouted it louder.

I found the keys and felt compelled to put in my motherly two-bits before pulling away from the curb. Cataloguing all of my most eloquent NVC lingo, maternal care (oh no! Am I caretaking again??) and the self-connection that would serve me best, I rolled down my window in turn. "Don't forget that you're in choice about what to do with the boogers!" I called.

So many peas in a pod.

Happy Birthday to Me, and a little poem....

In gratitude for the celebration of my life, light and a poem happening my way through the night....



Lear-y

I have
not so far to fall from
grace:

one trip by car to the grocery
ten blocks away
what I said
and did not say
one banana picked south
of California
a thought to feed the animal
I live in
that striped rug from China
not listening when you talk
not listening to my heart
doubting magic
sizing rocks
thinking too much.

Two sons
receive the model of my living.
Two sons
of mine inherit our Earth.

What if
they take this gift from me, ungrateful?
Have I
received its value full, myself?

To fool, to fool,
forget yourself,
flip the looking,
laugh.

Thirty-six years
behind me now.
What else have I
to do?

First Day At School

The boys went to school with a friend for the last 30 minutes of the school day yesterday. They attended with a mother who was assigned to go in and help with the "reading group," so they could all be together to go to the pumpkin patch after school. It was their first time ever to appear in public school while in session. Here is the report, as it was given to me last night at 10 p.m.:

"Writing the 'thank you' letter as I had planned didn't work," Trinidad told me. He'd brought a writing project to keep himself busy as the other kids read; he doesn't yet enjoy reading.

"The kids kept coming up and saying, 'Wow! you wrote that? That's really good! You write so good!' ...And I kind of liked it, but I couldn't concentrate, and there were more and more kids coming up, so I finally just put it away."

"There were Magic Tree House books," said Sam.

"Yeah, but the teacher wouldn't let Sam read any of them," Trinidad said. "She said she could tell by looking at him that he was not old enough to be reading those."

Sam has read several of the Magic Treehouse chapter books to himself. They are his favorite series. He reads aloud to us from Narnia, and even "sneaks" Harry Potter, because "now that [he] can read, [I] can't stop [him]." He's not quite five and a half, still smallish and chubby cheeked.

"So, what happened then?" I asked.

"Well, A-- tricked the teacher by reading only half of the Dr. Suess book and having Sam read the rest to her. She took it to the teacher and said she'd finished it. M-- saw that, thought it was a great idea, and had Sam read his for him, too. Then J-- and A --....."

I got the picture.

"A-- tells me they write every day," said Trinidad.

"What do you think of that?" I asked.

"I feel sad," he said. "Because they don't like to do it. I'd rather Unschool," he said.

To See In The Dark

Gliding through darkness, I reached up to adjust the headlight on my bike helmet. For an instant, the concrete path before me blackened, then glowed with the pale luminescence of electric light. My heart sank for a beat, yearning to witness again what I had seen in shadow.

What was it? What had I seen that fed me in that moment, that begged for me to return? I covered my light again. In seconds, my eyes adjusted to the dark, the swath of concrete path beneath my slender tires. Yes, that is what I had missed: the shadowland, a frontier to be seen only as my eyes would see it, a singular sense in shadows that only I can assign.

A sensation of fear pushed upward into my heart and rose to my ears while my hand simultaneously dropped and the light spilled cold to the concrete before me.

A choice to make. This is the lesson in my life, the lesson I see before us as a people. Alone in the dark, we can navigate with full autonomy only within the power of our footfall on the path. We can touch the beauty of light and shadows, the exquisite lens of each and every one of us capturing its own patterns, reflecting its own beauty back out into the world. But when we lift a tool to our aid, we are traveling beyond the realm of our power, beyond the realm of our autonomy and are suddenly in need of more external support to keep us safe and Strangely Sane in our world. As the tools "progress" so does our demand for more resourceful mechanisms to sustain us in superhuman flight across our planet, through our days.

My footprint is shaped by my footfalls, the beauty I perceive in my locale directly reflecting my ability to take it in... one breath at a time.

Next time, I will walk.

Sensible

Last night, lying in bed with the boys and talkingtalkingtalking like a bunch of slumber-party delinquents, I laughed and said, "You know, when I was a little girl, I went to bed by myself -- usually while it was still light out -- and I had to think of all these tricky ways to try to get myself to sleep..."

"Mom. You could have just climbed out the window," said Trinidad, point blank.

"I wouldn't have dared --"

"Well, I would have," he said. "And I would have gone down the block 'til I found some new parents who were more sensible."

Centered

My children and a young friend attempted to fly tonight. This endeavor called for sleeping bags and duct tape with many whispers behind a closed door.

I prayed for their confidence and safety and that I might leave them in peace to explore.



"At a kibbutz," my friend, David, tells me, "you grab a plate when you are hungry. And the food is hot."

"Where does it come from?" I ask.

"Many hands."



We swam in a wave pool today. "To the island!" said Sam, bobbing beside me in an orange lifevest. We swam back and forth, from one end to the other, me learning how to let go my muscles, to stop trying so hard. The twelfth lap in waves rising, I discovered moments of drift that rushed me forward effortlessly in time with the surge.



"We can have our rice in burritos for simplicity, or on a plate which would take more time to serve and clean up after. This choice impacts the amount of time that you will spend researching why children are not allowed in most public hot tubs before we get ready for bed. You decide."

"We'll have our rice in the burrito (right, Trin?)."

What does implicit leadership mean, to us all? I wondered.



"If we make an environmental club," said our young friend, "can I be the Queen?" Her query was countered by others in favor of partnership. Just a letterhead, she said she'd be content with -- if she might also be allowed to police in case someone wanted to destroy our club.

"I don't believe anyone would want to destroy our club. It sounds like you would enjoy really seeing your power in the world."

"It's not that," she told me. "But we might need police. Then we could make people take care of the environment."

"I would rather they do it out of choice and love," I told her. "How about you?"

"I see your point," she said.

Still, what makes us afraid of owning our need for power?



"I will slide by myself this time, Mama," Sam told me at the pool. "And I will wait for you at the bottom." After a moment's pause: "You promise?"

"Promise what?" I asked him. "You are the one waiting for me."

"Oh yeah," he said.


I am prime for adventure. I had no idea that partnership could feel like this. It is not adult centered. It is not child centered. It is simply centered, all spokes radiating outward and pulling us seamlessly forward.


Sometimes, dreams come true.


"I can fly without duct tape and blankets," I heard Sam say. "I can fly with just me."

What We Unschoolers Do All Day

"So, how do you Unschool?" a new friend, impressed with the boys vocabulary, at the park asked me yesterday.

"We just go about our lives, having fun," I said.

But perhaps I could be more specific (or at least more verbose).

Today, I got up before the kids and walked the dog, fed the rabbits and picked barely ripening tomatoes. When I got inside, I found Trinidad (age 8) laying on the couch playing with his Tamagotchi. We chatted in bits about our night's sleep, the progress his pet was making, our plans for that day and the next. He had questions about how many points he'd just been given by the "king." I sat down and gave him a quick explanation (10 min.) and practice identifying 1's, 10's, 100's, and 1,000's. We stopped when he wanted to.

Sam (age 5) woke up, and Trinidad decided he would start breakfast. He got out a frying pan and some eggs. I offered advice (which he chose to take) while he cracked in the eggs and turned them. I took over on the few unbroken yolkers so that they might be preserved while he and Sam set the table and poured water for all. I put toast and apple slices on, too.

After breakfast, the boys played with Legos, building complicated starships while I cleaned up and talked on the phone with friends.

As I jumped into the finances (balancing, bill paying, etc.), Trinidad offered to slice mushrooms to go on the dehydrator, so that tomorrow we could spend the day just having fun together (no home economics). He arranged the dehydrator, cutting board and racks on the table top so that all would fit and set to work. Sam played the Tamagotchi for awhile and then shifted to drawing with a book that "shows you how" to draw dinosaurs. Unimpressed with his results, he chose a book that both Trinidad and I wanted to hear (a chapter book with pictures), and read aloud.

Before Sam began to read aloud, Trin and I chatted occasionally. He wanted to know what the bank said we had in our account and how that money would be spent over the course of the next 2 weeks. He tallied the money mentally that he is saving to buy a sailboat from a friend and compared it to his goal. He proposed a tracking system and asked for feedback. I explained the use of a ledger and goal chart for the saving. He is still considering.

A neighbor child (age 4) came over to play, and all of the children dressed up, took swords, shrieked, ran and tumbled while I made a quick lunch.

After lunch, the neighbor went home and both boys read or looked at picture books while I cleaned up some more. Then we cleaned house together so we could make our goal of a cleaningless day tomorrow. At one point, Sam played piano and Trinidad a drum to keep me engaged with the rhythm of my work.

More children arrived to play. They explored water, tree climbing, and shared food. They created a cross country race course in the backyard, played the piano for each other and joined in games both competitive and non-competitive.

When everyone departed, I reviewed the morning math lesson for 5 minutes, and took the numbers into the 100,000's. Just before a million (heh, heh), he was done.

My children have now gone to the neighbors to play, and I will prepare for my music lesson. This evening, while I am away, they will spend the evening talking and playing with their Maddy (Seda), perhaps setting up a system to melt and contain the beeswax taken as a by-product from our hive when we extracted honey. Then, just before bed, we will continue our aloud reading of Julia Butterfly Hill's account of her real-life 3 year long treesit, entitled The Legacy of Luna. We're about halfway through.

So there it is. Each and every one of us owning their activity and boredom. The whole of us thriving (today at least) as a team.

The Zen of Tamagotchi

"But wouldn't you want to win?" the children asked me.

"Win what?" I said.

"The raffle!"

"Well... I suppose it depends on what I would be winning. I like to be given things I can use," I said.

"Hmmm," said Trinidad. "I know what you mean. Once I entered a raffle with my Tamagotchi (hand-held computer pet -- so long, Waldorf), and I got very excited when we won. Then I saw the prize: five poops and a snake that bites."

Yep.

Who's Your Leader?

At the top of a mountain, my boys and a ten year old friend could not be bothered to stop when offered a tuna sandwich. Food in hand, they set off "scouting" the trails about while I curled up on a wooden bench with my lunch, the dog and a view. East, west, north and south, their voices drifted back to me on the wind as they flirted with poison ivy, brush piles and steep slopes.

Returning for a drink, five year old Sam exhaled deeply as he set down the water bottle hard. "Are you the leader, Mom?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, matter-of-factly.

"How can you tell?" he asked.

"Because I have the band-aids."

What's Left Undone

We have taken an unconventional approach.

After our camping trip this summer, the boys only wanted more of me. "Why can't we play like we did then, only at home? Why do you always have so much to do?"

I read them the list: laundry, dishes, food prep, garden, floors....

"Why can't we play? Just for a day? At home?" they asked.

They couldn't understand my position, why I liked to keep them and and our home neat, food healthy and loved to serve us deeply.

Ah, but that is Play to them -- love.

Why can't we wear dirty clothes? A friend who lived on Orcas Island washed his clothes semi-annually after discovering the price for a load of wash at the laundromat: $18. Can I open my mind, heart and ears to my childrens' perspectives? For a week at Sutton Creek, we changed our clothes once -- slept in them, too.

I am aware that my words border the heretical. But lo, I cannot be fired. The only ones that pay my keep are demanding a restructure.

Lunch: leftover kasha, salad, and beans, still in their original pots, with a plum and a carrot -- no dishes, everyone for their own spoon. Change whatever clothes show too much food or dirt to spot clean at the end of the day -- then go to bed in them. (Gracious, I do hope my grandparents aren't reading this post!) Help is needed in picking up clothes, toys, and sweeping floors; all hands on deck if the object is Play. And need I mention how much fun I'm having? Will I tire of the vacation?

And so we have cut our laundry down to 3 loads per week, our cooking in half by making enormous meals that last three nights. The children have jumped to help by making their bed, sweeping, and picking up. They are delighted to eat from one pot, and (knock on wood), it's not killed any of us yet.

At the YMCA (we became members yesterday, now that we have all this time to Play!), Trinidad looked towards the window and said, "They keep those windows really clean. Most windows (i.e. Ours) just reflect, but those you can actually see through!"

Sam came home and washed the windows. The novelty of that is not so very attractive to them after all. But just think: if our windows get dirty enough, maybe I won't have to spend all that time dropping and raising the blinds!

Harvest

"The Praying Mantis laid an egg case!" Trinidad pointed to the foamy, scalloped oval of brown hanging from the side of the enclosure that held his most recent captive. Word got out, children came, and this symbol of hope in the spring hung like a rainbow bridge from the first frost of autumn.

I picked field beans yesterday in the rain, wool felt hat pulled low. Some pods bulged like pregnant women, proud and pale. Others had grown thin-skinned and their burden pressed through damp membranes like the entrails of a carcass left to rot. To take the heart of a plant, all it has known that has served -- this seed is a gift. Let me be reminded of death in all that is given.

The Mantis is much thinner now.

I have given thanks in times of joy so great, oneness so whole, love so ecstatic, that I thought there might be nothing of me left behind. I have given thanks for what was mine after the storm. In this moment, I give thanks for beauty, such beauty, in a field of corn, beans, and squash under the first heavy rains of the season.

There is more. My children sit sorting beans into piles, wondering which color will be revealed as they crack each pod open. It is a game, passing tomorrow back and forth in baskets and bowls, sometimes spilling. My children remind me that fury is not necessary in the gathering of food for winter. Play is just as important -- the bloom before the bearing.

Multi-colored corn hangs across our living room wall behind the wood stove. It is just a portion of what we have been gifted. Each child in our neighborhood will choose their favorite to take home. Every hue of the bejeweled ears leave me breathless. Sometimes, even with them hanging so nearby, I cannot bear to look.

"I found last year's egg case in the front yard!" Trinidad proudly holds up the dull, empty casing that he purchased with his own money at a local garden store last March. The mantis in his care now surely knew its walls.

Sometimes a moment sits still on the head of a pin to be held and examined. Sometimes it stretches out in all directions, and I cannot find myself at all.

The bridge across this divide shortens every autumn.

Sam's Last Words Before Sleep

"Mama, will you stay with me for ever and not die?"

"I will be with you, I hope, for as long as you want me to."

"Good, because when I'm ninety years old, I think I will still be kind of shy."

Unconditional Love

Last week, I learned something deep the hard way. I don't think there was any other path to learning this for me, and here, I have to smile, because I wonder how many other times in my life I could say that. :)

Tuesday, Trinidad and I had a conflict in the morning. I did not feel at all well to begin with, and perhaps Trinidad was coming down with the cold, too. Not sure. I refrain from sharing details of the conflict as they are not part of the point I'd most like to make, but the end had me sobbing and telling him that I took responsibility for my feelings and needs and did not blame him. It was mighty difficult for me to get to this point in this particular challenge, and I said it loudly through tears to convince myself as much as him. With his usual aplomb, Trinidad told me he could not understand me just yet -- could I come back when I wasn't crying so hard?

When we fully reconnected, there was much sweetness in our snuggle. But it wasn't over yet. At midday, Trinidad refused to leave a friend's house. Fresh in my mind sat the process I'd worked through just hours ago. I reached past my trigger into my heart and found the space to hold his disappointment and grief at the separation happening as his friend left. We sat together again for awhile.

An hour or two later, Trinidad grew angry (with his brother? with the world? I don't remember....) and I again easily found the key to open my heart as the softness threatened to withdraw. I invited him to a snuggle. We talked later about a plan in case of one of these challenges coming up again when his last playdate of the afternoon happened. We agreed to both wear "Pause" buttons (figuratively), to match his Tamagotchi.

At the end of that playdate, a three-year-old informed me that Trinidad was on the roof. I demanded he come down and he demanded that he would stay up. I called "Pause." We both stopped moving and a shift in our energy and approach could be measured. Trinidad started telling me about his experience. I requested he get down to tell me more, and he declined. I heard him some, but was still challenged by my concern for the two other children wanting to join him, perched at the top of the fig tree. They climbed down. Trinidad agreed to come down if I got the ladder.

I fetched the ladder and my son. As a child, when in trouble, I would go and sit alone on the curbside and study the concrete garden of dandelion and plantain. As Trinidad joined me on the driveway, I found myself turning to the street, walking with him hand in hand to sit at the curbside. As he leaned against me, we both gave each other empathy and really listened to the needs unmet. We found strategies that worked for both of us to meet those needs in future.

But most importantly, we ended the day connected. I can't imagine what our relationship might have been like if I had used force, threats, and punishment at each of the junctures that challenged us. I cannot see my life in that at all. As I lay beside him at bedtime for awhile, Trinidad held me close and told me over and over how much he loved me. I asked him if he felt all the more tender for the challenges we'd worked out together.

"Yes!" he said. "And Maddy and I worked out MORE things when you were gone tonight!" Trinidad glowed. The deep feeling of unconditional love struck me. The opening of my heart over and over, a fierce determination to keep those gates open to love -- the feeling settled deeper in me than I have ever known it. How could I know this territory without constant challenge and opportunity? Without a shared commitment to caring for one another? Without working and working and working it out?

And here's the bonus gift: Sam, too, took in the depth of this love, this hope for acceptance and deep peace even in challenge. He hugged me often throughout the day and observed aloud but out of Trinidad's hearing that he noticed his brother's triggers and was seeking to stay out of the way. He appeared to be unafraid of both Trinidad and me (beyond my early morning explosion into sobbing), but breathed deeply with what I guess was relief to see his brother held with such care even in conflict and distress. Witnessing his blossoming in this way is a gift I am so very grateful to receive.

Did I mention... that I was dead tired at the end of the day?

The New Tamagotchi

It's an electronic pet, complete with video games by which one can win points to buy "stuff" which will keep one's pet happy. It is suddenly essential to social life on our block. Trinidad was so excited for M-- to get home from school today, "so their Tamagotchis could connect."

Throughout the night, the *#! thing bleeped randomly every hour or two. When I reported this to its father, Trinidad said, "Yeah. When I got up, I discovered it had a toothache and pooped a whole lot." I nodded. (He asked if he should teach me to fix its tooth ache and clean up after it in case it happens again, and what -- oh what?! -- do you think I said?)

"How do you like parenting?" I asked.

"It's fun," he said. "But he doesn't always want to do what I want to do."

An authentic electronic experience.

One Fish, Two Fish

"Sam. Take off your shoe, and I'll put them in there to carry home."

"No, Trinidad. I have sandals," said Sam.

"They don't hold water. Nor mine," I said. Trinidad's shoulders sank as he stared into the creek.

"It's time to go," I said.

"Wait! I've almost got one," said Trinidad, nose inches above the water once again.

"Can you finish in about two minutes?" I asked.

"Yeah. Sure. I've almost got one," he said. Hmm, I thought.

"Okay! Here it is! I caught three, and they're all big. I think they can make it in my net until we get home," said Trinidad, fiercely determined.

"They will be out of the water the whole way? You're carrying them in your net?"

"Yeah! I just have to bring these for M--. He's going to put them in his bubble tank and they'll do great there. He's been trying to catch one, and now I have two! They're going to live, Mom. I'll run the whole way. It will only be a minute. They will be okay!" His blue eyes bore into mine.

I am: worried for their life, their comfort, wanting to contribute to gentleness in the world, wanting to live responsibly, wanting to support the development of compassion in my son, all -- all my need to contribute to the All as Me.

And yet. I am: not my son.

His arms swing nervously, staccato, at his sides. The net rests in the water, long handle in one hand. His feet, ankle deep in the muddy scum of Amazon Creek, are not my feet. His heart, beating a tattoo in his small but growing chest, is not my own. His mind, searching for meaning, understanding, connection in this plane, asks again -- and loudly -- if I can find it in me to let him be, to learn what he would most like to learn, to gather the consequences like autumn leaves about his youth to send his growing skyward.

My feet on the barkomulch path take stock of mySelf. I will watch him, I thought. I will hold this space for whatever may come. "Run," I said.

I turned and walked as I heard him clamber up the steep bank behind me, feet slipping and catching purchase again and again on the dry grass. Sam could not bring himself to leave his older brother and held the space between us, an anchor to us both with every nervous stride.

I gathered my courage to let be, and I walked. I did not look back. This is my gift, I thought. Let Sam bear witness. In that moment, I trusted my feet.

Trinidad tore past me at a run, Sam close behind. My steady pace quickened, and finally, I, too, broke into a run past neighbors who saw one, two, three on a mission for life, for learning.

As I stepped up to the porch, Trinidad rounded the corner, beaming. "They survived!" he said.

"They are in water now?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "My drinking glass. It was the closest I could find." I nodded.

And so we shared a parting, a reckoning, an opening. May the chasm between us hold all the love in this world.

Anger

Anger is a visitor welcome to my heart.

Five years ago, I first heard that anger was not an emotion, but a secondary tremor at the surface of my awareness, a thought that touched my feelings deeper than they wished to sound in their natural voices. I cocked my head, curious, and felt for my anger to hold it gently and with value for the message it might bring about what lived deep in me and chose to remain hidden.

Last week, while sharing my understanding of anger as a guide, a new view offered itself to me, and anger's cry found a particularly cherished place in my heart. In that moment, holding a dear one's anger with her, I heard not only a deep resonance from the wells of fear and sadness. In her words, bristling red with life -- yes, life! -- I did not hear a black disconnect from compassion at all, but instead a fiery adherence to some hope that had determined to slip her by.

"Your anger is a gift," I found myself saying. "It is alive in you not only as a gate and guide to the depths of pain whose witness will open your heart. Your anger is also the treasured voice of strength that you most need to face the darkness in yourself and others. Its fire is fueled by your soul's own fight against helplessness. If you had explored the reaches of your sadness, your fear, without the guide of this anger, you might have been overwhelmed by the emotions, pulled into a vortex of depression as you struggled to see your way out.

Anger offers you a rope to take with you into those depths. It tells you fiercely, loudly, tangibly, that you are powerful... for you are. It tells you that the energy arising in you at its arrival is your very own, not ever to be taken from you. And here you are to greet and receive it.

Do not give it away. It is tempting to send your anger at another, to direct its energy outward in thought and judgment. The sheer fire of your power can consume cities. Receive it instead. Accept its offer of power to counter the depth of your helplessness. Bring that assurance with you as you explore your pain. Receive that power from your anger, hold it, and connect it to your love. Then, whatever could be impossible to you?"

I am so very humbled, again, to witness the beauty of our hearts in this world. I am so grateful for the view into fire, not only because it offers to me the life in my own anger, but because it leads me to what lives in the anger of those that I fear.

Ahimsa, I am hot on your trail.

Drinking Poison As Wine

At sunset on Friday evening, I went sailing with a couple of friends. (Whoa dude... me, out for a joy ride -- what a vacation!) Sitting on the roof of the boat -- apologies, the nautical term escapes me -- I found myself deep in a conversation about consciousness when I heard a clink and a plunk.

"Oh! You lost something from your pocket," my companion told me.

"Yeah, I should have warned you about that," said my other friend. "Objects in pockets are not safe on a boat."

I thought a moment about what it could have been. My eyes widened. "I lost a stone," I said. "I lost a carnelian stone that is very special to me." The wind seemed to pause as I held my own response to this event: surprise, curiosity, and a small bit of mourning.

The sadness I felt touched the bittersweet goodbye of truly letting go and celebrating the connection I had enjoyed with that stone. I found it two years ago, polished as if for a setting but comfortably naked of metal wrappings in a bag of jewelry gifted to Seda. Its surface warmed quickly, golden red with a small dark occlusion offcenter. I have been carrying it with me off and on over the past year in my pocket as some comfort and support in touching what is sweet and earthly.

I sat a moment looking off across the lake in wonder. I did not remember ever releasing something of value to me so easily and joyfully. Yes, there was a joy to the letting go as I trusted that the sliding of that stone from my pocket into the depths below carried some meaning in the moment or thereafter, and while I did not delve deeply into what that might be, I settled myself with the very gift of that presence to possibility. I did not search my pockets.

The evening's beauty only grew my state of awe, and as the sun's last rays topped a nearby hillside, I reached into my pocket to discover the stone tucked safely against my thigh. Surprised again, I pulled it out to share with my friends who took in the last golden light of the evening through its dark amber lens. The man who owned the boat gave it back only reluctantly. "It gets warmer and warmer the more I hold it," he said.

Where that stone went or did not go is beyond my understanding. "I know I saw something slip out of your pocket, bounce off the edge there, and fall into the water," both friends said. I, myself, had heard the sounds. But I do not remember anything else that could have been in my pocket.

I met the surprise of two other "misfortunes" with the same curious openness since, and I realize I am experiencing a sense of detachment that I have not previously known. Yes, it was me who chose to leave the garlic hanging outside and now, after so many summer rains, it is beginning to rot. The pain has registered since, but my initial awareness did not include any self-blame or even worry for the consequence. Likewise, I noticed only surprise as I rounded the corner this morning to see the freshly stained deck turning pale in the morning dew where it did not, apparently, get time enough to dry before the evening's cool set in.

There is time to cuss and make faces as I work with the repercussions of these events, yes, but the deep seed of fear that had accompanied such discoveries in the past did not taken root in my psyche as I first witnessed them. I am working with what is in the moment, accepting my present annoyance, but fully trusting in the Universe to hold me as my path thus shifts towards what I will next step into.

Almost two years ago, I resolved at the New Year to learn to take in unexpected disaster as if it were a friend with hardly a beat between. Someone dear to me pointed to an Indian god who "drank poison as if it were wine." Yes, I told him, that's what I would like to do.

I had no idea what the training for that particular goal might look like, and if I had, perhaps I would have thought twice. Nonetheless, the events of the weekend suggest I am well on my way to journeyman in the field of winemaking, and I am counting my blessings in all of their sundry forms, unexpected though they may be.

A toast?

While Sleeping Dogs Lie

So, I'm hopping around in my flea-like existence, contemplating only the mat of the dog hair before me, singing the song of some memory of a swim or a drowning (I'm not sure which),when Seda asks me if my memory is bittersweet and I tell her no... it's just a dream.

A good one? she wonders.

No. Not good or bad. Just a dream I had once, and the water was not cold and not hot in my memory now because whatever it was at the time, there was disagreement when the swim was over and the dog and I had a different idea of the temperature.

Oh, she says. That kind of dream.

Yeah, I tell her, and it's like this: if I can't know that an experience in my most full and alive moments in this realm is ever actually shared, then what, in fact, has been my experience at all? If it is only my own -- and lonely, lonely that drip, drip sound could be! particularly in retrospect, the full view of its singular solidarity unto itself -- then what difference is there between waking and sleeping?

There is no excitement there, I tell her. No longing or urgency or wondering. Just a smattering of light whose infinite shadow I once stepped on in one plane or another. The memory only prompts an awareness of the ethereal nature of my very flea-like existence. It points, in it's recovery, to some grander, effortless jump to which my tiny legs do not wholly belong.

All in a dream, while sleeping dogs lie.

Two Funnies From Sam

1. To his friend, Seamus, at the height of their absorbtion in Lego Etc. Land: "Let's say that if they're normal adults, they don't Get It. And if they're kids or super hero adults, they Get It."

2. To me at the campground, in puzzlement, while trying to clean up the fire pit for the next campfire: "Mom, there is just so much sand here. Do you have a vaccuum cleaner?"

Crossing Creeks: Work And Play

Fearless Mother That I Am, I took both boys camping with me for four nights and five days, returning this afternoon. We had a lovely time, meeting up with other mothers and like-aged boys at a campground on the coast. Taking no chances this year after the Bear Encounter of last summer, we slept in the back of our stationwagon with the windows shut.

On day two, we took a hike to the beach. I refused to drive to the access point and proposed with that old 4-H spirit that we hike it in. The boys caught the whirlwind of my apparent excitement and agreed to this plan. We set off early on a six mile round trip hike across dunes and through the Rhododendron pine forests to our oceanic goal. I had not mentioned the creek crossing.

When we arrived at the edge of the creek, I told them that Ben said it was easy to cross, knee-deep at most. We walked the creek east for 40 feet. Chest deep in places, for sure. We walked back to our starting place and west for ten feet. Log jams created possible bridges, but still chest deep beneath.

My daypack was full. Snacks, discarded raingear, shoes, lunch, water for three. The dog eyed me squarely. "We can do this!" I cried, beaming unshakably.

"Okay!" said Sam. "I'll just test out this bridge." Off he went across the fallen logs. I left my pack and pants on the shore to follow him (turning my back with great alacrity on the apparently empty "viewing deck" over the creek and ocean). Traversing three different trunks, we got within four feet of the opposite shore. Sam paused and looked back, tentatively.

"I can throw you," I said, nodding. His eyes widened.

"Yes," he said. "That would work."

Trinidad giggled nervously. "Really, mom?"

"Sure," I told him. Sam pointed out that he could always swim if I missed. Then he instructed me around how to hold him so his feet would brace against my thighs, and he could add some extra spring. Trinidad stood watch over the pack, shoes and dog, biting the sleeve of his shirt.

It occured to me that this was the stuff of memory: our family working together to forge and cross bridges into unknown territory with courage, humor and faith in our own buoyancy. I cherished our focus, the tight weave of fabric that held us in this moment of joyful crisus while we pursued a shared goal. The "work" of a family united.

"One -- two -- three -- go!" Standing on the end of a mossy submerged log in only my underwear and a t-shirt, I lobbed my five year old son through the air, and he landed with a thud on all fours in the sand. Trinidad broke into hysterics. I joined him. Sam, recovering his composure, turned and chuckled deeply. We all stood, roaring with laughter, while the dog looked askance.

I returned for Trinidad, then the pack and shoes, and finally, I somehow made the distance dry, myself. The dog, sure that she was now to be left behind ("Come on, Stickeen!"), took a single-minded flying leap and missed her goal by six inches. After a few seconds, she surfaced, moppish, and regained her sense of humor only after a good shake on us all.

My boys ran the waves and the dunes for the next three hours, then, hot and tired, we began the long pack home. First milestone: the creek. This time, we found a trail that lead us to a crossing ten yards west of our first. The way was gentle and shallow -- just over the knee. Both boys peeled off their pants and jumped in, this time searching out the logs to jump from.

After a full-on submerging several times, Sam turned to me, grinning. "Which side were we supposed to get out on?" he asked.

So this is play. Unfocused, creative, alive and connected. More memories of our family together, crossing creeks as a canvas, work and play to color it whole.

Cultivating Gratitude

I met my mother on the coast for our annual weekend away together. The little hotel we stayed in is run by an elder Vietnamese woman who always has a smile on her face. The evening I checked out, she overheard me whistling and grinned in admiration. "I like your whistling. You very good at it. It's important to sing, too. It cost nothing, and it make you happy," she said, nodding.

I agreed, and we touched hearts candidly around music, life, and love. I pointed to a picture of her on the wall looking much younger and well-dressed, sitting alone at a bistro table. "You look so serious here. You were then, weren't you?"

"Yes," she said. "I was younger, and my life more formal then in Vietnam. Now I live here in this beautiful place, and I can relax and be grateful. I so fortunate to live here."

"You are even more fortunate to touch that place of gratitude," I told her.

"How come you know so much?" she asked. "You only thirty-five? Most people don't know to sing or be grateful 'til they are much older. Who taught you?"

Who, indeed? A cosmic convergence, the perfect storm. I am so grateful for this gift. I walked out of her lobby, across the parking lot, and stood on the edge of a bluff overlooking the ocean. The sunset brushed orange and red behind dark clouds. I planted my feet into sandy succulents and stared across the grey stretch of sea before me.

I felt gratitude. Deep into the reaches of me, awareness of what has been gifted, my joy and appreciation for the love that courses through my days, consumed me. My gratitude sank deeper than it may ever have yet, stretched above and beyond what I thought possible. I realized that it was barreling ever outward into the infinite expanse that is me in the Universe, and I watched with wonder to realize that I will live to see this grow.

I touched my gratitude for a mother who I have come to recognize and value as the unique spirit she is in the world, the privelege of knowing her intimately through my role as daughter. I touched my gratitude for the beauty of the place I stood, always and forever caught in the cycle of chaos and order, growth and destruction. I touched gratitude for my awareness of the Beloved within me, beyond the hard but attractive notion that it belongs to the partners who have worn this collar in my life.

I sat with gratitude only for gratitude's sake and the blessed realization that this may be at the core of my life's work in growing my capacity for love.


P.S. Two hours after writing the above, I finally finished a brilliant article from The Sun magazine, January 2008, entitled "Through A Glass Darkly: Miriam Greenspan On Moving From Grief To Gratitude." Succinct and powerful insights on the process. So grateful for Greenspan's gift in being and sharing. Check it out at our local library.

Windfall

I am so blessed.

Twenty six quarts of apple sauce we preserved, pots spitting so high the sauce stuck to the ceiling. My hands blistered red from the fall of it while I shrieked and laughed, stirring two pots at once. Katherine, my doctor friend, sat with a look of terror at the multitasking, children running in and out to show their artwork and collections of baby teeth, jars boiling, apples cooking in the oven and on two burners, questions from Seda. Her husband, Ben, my music teacher, sat cutting more apples, reminded of Passover preparations years past, a marathon of slicing and chopping. We stood feeding the food mill at nearly 2 a.m., the apples not quite cooked and squeaking at the churn like Laborador puppies as I doubled over, laughing my belly inside out at the sound. And then the clean up in overwhelm... what to wash, what to bag for the night, how to stop in midsaucing when so much momentum drove those apples into softening...

The last of my friends left by 2:30, and I fell into sleep as if it were a warm, dark hole that Trinidad dragged me from snappy growling at 5:30 a.m. when a thunderstorm crashed overhead. He watched it alone and miraculously went back to bed without my help. I, lost in sleep again, recovered before eight, and found the strength in a few phone calls with our scattered tribe of mothers to plod the final lap of the canning process and set the last jars, gleaming, on the rack.

The harvest
a gleaning
a canning
a keeping
a warm fire glowing and
friends, oh
friends, how the bounty is ours.

Early Bedtime Overrated

Ha! Careful what you say....

Last night, the last kid friend went home at 10:00 p.m. after a barbecue and ice cream. Trinidad then decided to sleep outside. He got on his "other clothes" (they choose not to do pajamas, but sleep in their next day's clothes) and brushed his teeth while I peeled, sliced and cored apples for the dehydrater. Sam liked his brother's idea, but the notion of getting ready for bed fell beyond the realm of his will power. He moaned and collapsed on the couch with a Spiderman book.

Five year old Sam read to me about Spiderman and Doc Ock. Then, another Spiderman book. I kept peeling and coring. Then he picked up the Beatrix Potter anthology and read me more than half of Peter Rabbit -- and that's a long story. We all celebrated Sam's ease and joy in reading even the big words like "responsibility" and "scythe" with complete independence. Trinidad found himself inspired enough to read part of a Little Critter book, too.

At 11 p.m. I had two racks left to fill in the dehydrator. Seda had gone to sleep in the hammock in our garden. Trin had fallen asleep half on the futon and half off, waiting for me. Sam kept reading to himself. The doors of our house stood open to the rising breeze. Lightning began to flash and thunder rumbled.

I finished the last tray, washed my hands, and invited Sam outside. He popped around the corner in a wink. Trin proved unrousable. Sam and I sat alone on the back deck and watched the show. Lightning streaked across all parts of the sky overhead, illuminating clouds of purple and gold. Sheet lightning flashed behind our enormous willow tree and the leaves and branches stood black in skeletal relief. Thunder clapped and rolled.

Sam ran to get a sleeping pad he had prepared for his evening's sleep. I got a pillow. We snuggled up next to one another and talked about each flash, our wonder and appreciation for the night's beauty. At almost midnight, Sam adjusted his pillow. "What is that?" he asked sharply and jerked his hand back. "A slug?!"

"Ooooh! I'm probably laying on one -- oh, I am!" We both jumped up, laughing hysterically.

Today, I notice that my fingers are not striking the keyboard where I tell them to. The words don't flow as easily as I'd like. My brain is foggy, it's true, with the sleep I did not get. But I have a memory, and so does my sweet boy.

Bounty

I am so grateful.

There is a gravenstein apple tree in my life just now. It is an older, full-sized tree loaded with bright green apples, some blushing shyly in pink. The tree stands central and majestic in the garden of a friend's home I am stewarding while they are away, and its very bounty speaks to me.

Last night, the boys, Seda, and I loaded into the car (we did have many boxes of apples to transport, after all) and crossed four blocks to the tree that awaited our picking. We discovered that one of its great branches had broken in the waiting. Apples hung from heaven to earth with a painful reminder in splintered wood that so much fruit can be too much to hold. Windfall apples underfoot across the sparse lawn settled into boxes to be sauced this week. The boys took turns with the "apple picker" tool comprised of an open metal cage on a long stick to collect the harvest. Seda climbed with boxes up and down our tall orchard ladder.

I sat on the grass, so many apples spread before me. I sorted "B grade" apples into boxes for dehydrating, "C grade" for saucing, and I wrapped "A grade" apples individually in newspaper for autumn and winter eating. As my family laid them before me, I marveled at our teamwork, a harvest in itself. The apples, in both quantity and quality, warmed my heart with hope for a cold winter ahead. We will be fed.

"Look up!" said Sam. The summer sun had released its candy pink hold on the clouds overhead, and as the golden globe had slipped under land, only a blanket of sky behind held the memory of its light. Now the clouds took a monotone blue grey over a background of bright orange gold, fading to an other-worldly lavender, and finally to blue as the scene stretched above us. We all paused to watch.

Almost too much beauty to take in. We packed up our load and headed home, bleary eyed, into dishoveled beds. The house had been ignored in the presence of summer picking. This morning, I awoke in my smallish bed that is piled with four days clean laundry to fold. Both of my boys, after various middle of the night reasonings, snored beside me. And the dog.

So much bounty. May my heart find strength to hold the weight of it all.