Home Alone – Almost

 

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I like to think my writing group met today – even though the advance of Hurricane Sandy kept attendance down to two of us.  We even managed to speak of writing a little bit and even about the logistics of blogging.  In reality, our mini-meeting was just a little bit of a day with the girls, and it was just what this gal needed.

I’ve been part of a writing group for the last five or six months – Hubbard Hall, a local community theatre and arts center in Cambridge, NY.  Led by author Jon Katz, I initially came to the workshop with specific ideas about what I wanted to write and what I wanted to learn.  I hoped that the year-long experience would be my long-coveted MFA in writing.  It has turned out to be so much more than that for so many reasons, and today’s get together highlighted that once again.

From an educational standpoint, the Writer’s Project at Hubbard Hall has been an awakening for all of us.  No longer do I call myself a wannabe artist or writer.  I am now simply on a creative journey that will hopefully last a lifetime.  And, as I read the posts of my comrades, I see the same exuberant embrace of this ideal permeating our increasingly tight-knit group.

That small, eclectic group of writers is the other, completely unanticipated, aspect of this project.  Our first meeting was pleasant and friendly, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only attendee who worried that my work might not measure up.  In the course of the last few months, however, this creative collective has conjured its own special magic.  Wielding encouragement and hope, constructive critiques and glowing reviews, we banish anxiety and trepidation everyday online.  Today, two of our number sat at a kitchen table and compared notes and shared the histories of our creative lives,  and we banished it again.  

The rest of the group was sorely missed, and we’ll meet again another weekend with the entire crowd.  Assembling even the tiniest fraction of this group, however, was invaluable to me not only because it was a chance to talk about our work.  For me, it was the first grown-up, face-to-face social activity I’d had in over a week of chauffeuring children to doctor’s offices and pharmacies when I wasn’t working at or setting the kitchen table.  For me, the few stolen hours at that same table chatting and snacking with a new friend was just what the defense I needed against the dulling monotony that lurks at the corners of my very domestic life.  

Sympathy for the Mousers

The second day into what should have been a one-day event, I have excavated and mouse-proofed every square inch of our pantry (at least it better be mouse proof).  I’m not one to go off the deep end (at least not when it comes to cleaning), but nothing irks me more than discovering evidence that the furry little freeloaders have managed to elude the cats and pilfer my pantry.

So as I excavated, I implemented every non-electric mouse trap and deterrent I could think of, and I began to feel a little like the Coyote planning and baiting his traps.  At first I giggled and pushed aside any worry that I am that nutty or obsessive in my pursuit of this prey, but as Thing 1 threatened to get a court order to stop my pantry-cleaning dance and the Big Guy volunteered to ferry Thing 2 to his play date, I started to wonder, are all these canisters and traps and deterrents a sign that I’m getting a little too close to the edge?

Or are they just a recognition that once in a while we should tip our hats to the rusticators of rodentia, the bad ol’ putty-tats, and admit that mousing is harder than it looks?

Yay Homework

It’s Sunday, which means it’s homework day around our house.  Every Sunday night we make the same resolution that it will be done on Friday, and every Sunday night we’re standing over Thing 1 with a whip, making sure the forgotten paper or book gets done.  Not this Sunday, however.

It’s Thing 1’s turn to design for the time-honored Egg Drop project (in which each student designs a container that will safely carry an egg from the top of the school roof or bleachers to the ground below),   With hardly any egging on from us (sorry, couldn’t resist), my seventh grade sit-in enthusiast has been designing, and dropping and redesigning his entry.  The excitement on his face has is well-worth the cost of an egg (or two), and all weekend, I’ve been wondering why all homework can’t be like this.

I know some of it is to prepare them for the drudgery of independent learning in the “real” world called college.  But, today, watching him be a scientist makes me wonder if there is a way to breathe some new life in to other assignments so that they can be historians, or writers, or creators for a weekend.  And mostly so they can see on a daily basis what we mean when we say learning is exciting.

Keepin’ it in the Pantry

This is the part in the Little House books where the kids joyfully pick up their aprons or tools and join their parents in the business of maintaining the homestead.

At our house the scene is a little different.  Thing 1 and Thin 2 have managed to stretch out breakfast at least 30 minutes longer than normal, somehow using telekinesis to restart the TV in the process.  All this is to avoid the stack of twenty-first century chores awaiting them.  The way I have to badger them to get wood stacked and room cleaned, you’d think I was violating child labor laws.  But today, I’m willing to risk it.

For me, it’s pantry-cleaning day.  My annual attempt at organization just before the flurry of fall company and winter snows make a chaotic larder not just inconvenient but dangerous.  During our desperate days my well-packed pantry was security, but (with the exception of last winter) having stocked shelves can literally be a life saver in a Vermont winter when roads are treacherous or even blocked.

I usually enjoy this job for all it foretells – holiday dinners, hot chocolate and popcorn on snowy days – but something primal (or spiteful, your call) in me does not cotton well to the sounds of sloth in the background.  So I badger and they move – slowly – and I hope that one of my pantry excavations will yield a jar of Dr. Pioneer’s Elbow Grease for kids.

Superdude

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I don’t remember this phase as a child, but both my boys have gone (and are going) through extended periods of interest in superheroes.  Thing 1 was into Superman in pre-K and Kindergarten, and then, in First Grade, he became obsessed with Spiderman.  His TV-viewing was pretty controlled (much more than Thing 2’s is – by virtue of living with an older brother), so his interest in these characters was curious.

Some of it had to come from friends’ toys and costumes, but I still couldn’t figure out the attraction. Was it the superpowers?  The flying? The web spinning?  So one Halloween as we were putting together another superhero costume, I asked Thing 1, “Why do you like  Spiderman so much?”

He was silent for a minute and then said, very seriously, “Because he saves people.”

Now six years later, Thing2 is in his superhero phase (like many of his male classmates), and I hear him express some of the same admiration for a superhero’s altruistic motivation.  But, while Thing2 is always sincere in his desire to help or save people from the bad guys, I have started to believe his alter-ego is working unconciously to save something equally as important as well – his inner superhero.

Always a free-spirit who marches not to his own drummer, but leads his own rhythm section, Thing2 was content to wear his inherited Superman and Spiderman costumes in their original form for a few weeks.  But, as his inner monologue evolved, so did the costumes, and I now call the resident savior at Minister Hill ‘SuperDude’.

He still sports the red and blue web-enhanced spidey-suit, but has since acquired a cape and boots and sequined glove (courtesy of a female cousin who has outgrown her dress-ups).  Somedays the uniform includes green goggles, and recently a rainbow wig of tightly-coiled curls has crowned the ensemble.  And with each addition to his costume, SuperDude acquires not only a new superpower – just yesterday I learned he could save all the electricity in the world by turning off a light switch – but his bouncing gait gets more joyous, and his spirit seems to fly a little higher.

There’s a seriousness that seems to overtake a lot kids when they get to grade school.  The change in expectations between Kindergarten and First Grade seems to begin opening their eyes to the sad fact that their carefree existence is not endless.  But when I watch SuperDude skidding around the kitchen table, searching for a new component for his costume, I know he is working very hard to ensure that Thing 2 doesn’t lose the ability to fly and leap and soar – if not through the air, at least through his own life.

Finding Our Groove

Over the last few years, our family has been moving away from the orgy of spending and over-the-top revelry that has come to define the pre-pre-teen birthday party.  Poverty was a big help in our decision, but conversations with Thing 1 about his fondest birthday memories have confirmed our opinion that smaller celebrations may not only be cheaper, but more memorable.

So each year, we take Thing1 on a day trip to his favorite science museums, and now Thing2 is hitting an age when having a special day with the family trumps the excitement of staging a three ring circus in our yard.  Lately, his birthday celebration has taken the form of a weekend hike or activity with aunts and uncles and cousins, but this year, schedules and circumstances left the four of us to our devices.

Our search for something out-of-the-ordinary took us to Hubbard Hall, a local community arts center and our go-to source for all things creative and inspirational.  Donald Knaack, aka the Junkman was leading a workshop, on the surface anyway, on the fine art of turning trash into musical treasure.  By the end of the hour we realized he was teaching something much more.

There were only a few kids and parents there.  The kids were shy, and the parents were self-concious.  Most of us seemed to be under the impression, as I was, that we would watch the kids create and play.  But the Junkman had other plans.

We sat in a circle, each taking a piece of junk, and the Junkman began to talk about music, and rhythm, and life, and connecting to it through music.  The kids grew more enthusiastic as he talked, and the adults began to smile, as he reminded each of us of our connection to music.

Over the course of the next hour we whacked, and stomped, and clapped, absorbing his instructions until the playing became more than just rhythmic.  It became organic.  The beats and tones were spell-binding and breaking at once.  The Junkman encouraged us, banishing self-conciousness as we all began to embrace not just the rhythm but the idea that making music is as much about finding our groove and becoming part of it as it is about finding the perfect note.

Animation adventure

 

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Spent most of the day working on the drawings for my first animation in a while. Mostly just doodles and still working on the soundtrack, but every step towards the end of the storyboard gives me new respect for the people who pioneered this art.

Hope to have it done tomorrow sometime.

 

The Kitchen Table Trail

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Once upon a time, I was a comet. I flitted from job to job, person to person, and place to place. Most of the time I was not happy, but there are pieces of my journeys that don’t cause extreme discomfort when they intrude on my consciousness.  The funny thing was that, at the time anyway, I knew I was unhappy but never considered that floating aimlessly through space and life was the cause of the unhappiness.

Now, most days, I orbit our kitchen table.  I earn there.  I cook and clean there.   Often I create there.  And when I stop to look at my trail these days, I realize it’s a million miles from where I once thought I wanted to be.

I’m glad I had adventures – even if most of them were misadventures – as a young adult.  I don’t think I would appreciate the beauty of mundane family life in the same way if I hadn’t.  And, in the last few months, as I’ve participated in a writing workshop at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, NY, I’ve come to appreciate it in a new way.

When I first started this blog – writing about my domestic un-goddessness, I felt I had surrendered.  Our early group discussions had emphasized the value of finding stories close to our own lives, but everyone in our group seemed to be living much more interesting lives.  I still think they are in many ways, but I no longer see the search for stories in the low-grade domestic chaos that is my life as a work-at-home-mom as a cop-out.

Searching for my stories has made me infinitely more aware of other writers’ search for a bigger meaning in the mundane.     As I started writing about laundry half a dozen times (can I ever escape that?) I start to notice similar simple themes in books I once loved for their love stories or their settings.

Tolstoy once wrote, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Personally, I think most families are somewhere in between happy and unhappy and each in their own way.  However, I have come to believe that happy writers are all alike in that they have been lucky enough to find value the stories that are in someway close to their lives (and some of us have very active fantasy lives that hover invisibly over the kitchen table).  And in discovering the meaning of their stories, they begin to find a new meaning in their lives.  At least that’s how it is on the trail around my kitchen table.

Seconds, Please

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So, this isn’t profound or anything, but I’m forty-something, and only in the last two weeks of my life have I discovered how much a pie crust benefits from a good rolling surface. It’s changed my baking life.

I don’t know whether my pleasure over this discovery is pathetic, or if I should just be happy that at the tender age of forty-something I’m still discovering something new about pie.

I’ll figure it out over desert, I guess.

The Sweet Taste of Serendipity

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I used to think we were really green in our lifestyle; now I realize we’re actually just cheap.

We got off of oil partly for environmental reasons, but we were really just tired of paying a bill that seemed increasingly out of control.  We garden partly because we like organic food, but I really get the most satisfaction out of having dinner makings 20 feet from my door rather than 15 miles away at the grocery store.

But, whether we do what we do because we’re charitable or cheap, an appetite for spontaneity has been the key to sustaining our sustainability.  Sometimes the appetite didn’t need whetting – like when a neighbor drops by with bucket full of acorn squash.  But other times – when the bucket is full of the same zucchini that we’ve already grown weary of – serendipity is an acquired taste but one that we both try (and try to force our kids) to appreciate , even when it takes some effort.

Most people my generation were raised by parents with their own childhood memories of the Depression, and I doubt even my kids and their friends have escaped hearing a chorus of  “There are starving children in…. “.  I only began to understand that refrain – and to appreciate the flavor of fortune when my parents briefly moved us to Peru when I was in the fourth grade.

We had lived there once before when I was five.  My parents rented both times, and both times they continued the employment of the housekeepers who had worked for their landlords.  They stayed in touch with both women long after their stay in South America, even corresponding with some of their children and extended family.  During our second extended stay in Lima, our first housekeeper invited us to her house for dinner.

We had been there before, but I hardly remembered the  first visit, and I still remember being shocked when we drove to her village and walked into a house that consisted of a few semi-finished walls of brick and several woven walls.  The entire structure was not much bigger than an American living room, but it housed her entire family and their chickens.  We knew any inappropriate comments would result in swift and severe reprimands, but we also loved this woman (she had taken care of us when we were much younger), and her chickens fascinated us.

My sister was going through a noodles and ketchup phase that year, but my parents had (and still have for their grandkids) a  rule that you had to try at least one bite of everything on your plate (which they loaded of course).  We had had mostly good experiences with Peruvian food, and we were usually – but not always – happily compliant.  For this visit, however, my father quietly made it abundantly clear that the one bite rule would be expanded to cover everything on our plates.

As it happened, she served us a Peruvian version of Arroz con Pollo, made with one of their freshly-killed chickens, and I remember easily cleaning my plate. Later, as we drove home we talked about the house and the chickens and of our hostess’s kids.  And when the conversation turned to the meal itself, my father mentioned that the food she had prepared for that one meal was more than most families in that village ate in a week.

Thinking back on it now, I realize their efforts weren’t just about expanding our palates and our world (although our stint there definitely did that).  They were trying to teach us not only to take advantage of opportunity when it presented itself but also to fully appreciate it when we did.  I took that lesson with me wherever I traveled.  And, while we will never know the level of poverty we saw in that village, being able to appreciate opportunities of all flavors has helped us sustain our lifestyle and, sometimes, our family.