i've looked around enough to know . . .

after a month of digging around in dark corners and clicking (switching and stirring) gadget and gizmo, i give you this:

www.molliegreene.com

if you've been visiting greenemama.blogspot.com via molliegreene.com then you're probably already in the know. . .



appreciez!

self-portrait tuesday -- fool

breezy and blue with a green and a golden and here i sit indoors at a computer, no less. fool, this girl would be had she not the excuse of sleeping boys in upstairs rooms and the necessary looking and listening after of them.







The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever! The faint silvery warblings heard over the partially bare and moist fields from the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell! What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations?

"can be undesirable for early risers like schoolchildren"

thanks for nothing, willett, franklin.

self-portrait tuesday -- time

the days blew by and, having missed a few pics of the kitchen and her terrible dishes that ever need doing, i've not a full month of self-portraiture to document here, which is probably for the best. sundays were hard to remember as we were at church at ten a.m. saturdays were hard, too, because at the promised time, i was whirling a scarf around and jingling bells with kindermusik students. other days were just busy and though we certainly ate, the sight of the kitchen was more than the camera could handle. therefore, i've got a week's worth of dishes to represent the month entire. most of them are dirty, because, well, in all honesty, most of the time the sink is full and waiting for someone to come and clean it.



the dishes and the doing of them are a very real part of me. they may not define me as a person, but the hours spent in thought, a kind of post-dinner rumination, have birthed ideas and plans rising up through steam and bubble that may not have come when i was applying myself to more studied, more valuable work at my desk, in a chair, nose in book, fingers clicking the latest spinning of story.

if the kitchen is not clean then the rest of the house seems to me to be a hovel, the clutter pillaring around us, necessity pooling at our feet as we frantically search for waders. as freakish as it may seem, though, if the kitchen is clean, the dishes washed, the sink shining, the floors crunch-free (no thanks to jude . . . ), if everything is put away and ready for the next round of buzzing, then the rest of the house is liveable, though perhaps lived-in, and living in it without constantly thinking of cleaning it is possible.

one would think, given this admission, that the kithen would be cleaner more often, no?

"if like a crab you could go backward."

kai was my friend, too. we ate breakfast nearly every morning for a year or two. the group grew and shrunk, but kai was always there, bowtie carefully tied and twisted under his chin, a wooly sweater tied around his neck like a ralph lauren advertisement.

noel and i used to study in the same section of the library so that we could walk by and drop notes on his textbooks. he was too much to resist, accent and all, his ferocity about studying, his confusion as to whether we were serious or not.



today, when i read this admonition from joy regarding taking care to speak (or type) carefully, to consider your audience and the possibility that your words will not be taken as you intended them to be taken, i thought of two things: kai and the way that he always walked too fast, looking at the sidewalk, thinking in hebrew, relishing the next few hours in the library; and the power of words, their ability to tattoo themselves to the most tender skin of our memories (right on the ribcage, under the arm).

thank you, joy, for the gentle reminder to take care with what we say (and, perhaps, to stop skimming!).

trois raisons . . .

. . . to love weekends . . .

maverick

"what's an adventure, mama?" he asks, sloshing bubbles across the tile. he's wearing a bubble beard and his brother is pouring water on his head.

"an adventure is something that you do that's exciting, maybe dangerous, something that you've never done before," i say to him, wondering what he's thinking about as he swims in circles in the tub. "when you take on an adventure you have to be determined and brave."

"i'm brave, i want an adventure," and his true blue-green eyes twinkling assure me that he's sincere.

he's an adventure, something exciting, dangerous, unknown. everything he does is plucky, brave, buzzing. he's a crusader, a gambler, a marvel, a marvelous.



some might say that the only thing to do with his kind of spunk and spirit is to beat it down, break it, crush it until it's a fine golden powder that blows the way it is breathed upon. it seems to be the simplest way to master his energy: turn it into something easy to manage, to manipulate, to dominate. and it certainly seems to be much easier than constructing with slivers and needles a smooth and shining silver conduit for the ocean of his volition (that swirls in waves and whirls in pools) to travel safely until adulthood.

if his will is broken and he is easy to manage, then how will he say, "no!" to folly? if he is taught that children do not have a voice and that authority is little more than domination, if he does not know what it means to one-another, to disciple, how will he then be empowered to lead his own?

"i want an adventure!" is what i say beneath the water, above, and over the water. and i want an adventurer, a maverick, a boy whose will is strong, who leads and does not follow, who not only knows that which is right, but is brave, determined, and defiant enough to do it.