Monday, February 28, 2005

i'll walk from vegas, you sail from rome

it had been warm enough to contemplate the opening of windows. and then necessity called for a sorry gathering and wearing of coats, nothing too serious, mostly lightweight jackets (henry called for help to reach his "jacket-coat."). and in the wee hours of this monday morning when jude was gnashing his gums together and lamenting the advent of his teeth in his sleep, when he and i were walking the floors all shiny in the moonlight, a long honey-colored moonshine at the foot of the bed, the snow had already been falling in a whirl, not a slant or a steady fall, but in swirls, the way that it does in a wind as march comes (prematurely) roaring a king richard the lionheart. even now as i type i can hear this wind up, over the roof and down the long channel of driveway, whipping and whistling between the trees and bushes and grapevines.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

black crows in the meadow







his cigarette is burning but he never seems to ash

finally something green.



still gray and cold. henry tracks mud with his pirate boots. he stands in my mother's yard and drives a stick deep into the mud, then jerks it back sending mud-chunks up and over his head, my head, jude's head, the front fence. he laughs and does it again. jude peers over the edge of the backpack with his red nose and blue hat.



jude's latest obsession is all things henry. they laugh at each other, jude jumping his laugh as he tries to prop himself into a stand using henry's face as a crutch.



henry is taking swimming classes at the ymca. we go two mornings a week. i spend all morning gathering swimming gear and supplies for jude's stay with grandma. the swimming part is exciting. henry is fearless in his floating swimming clothes. he paddles the width of the pool for half an hour and then we climb out in a drip and head for home.

on tuesday mornings a handicapped rehab group comes to swim. the kids don't swim, they are pulled around in the water by their life-jackets by tender caregivers. they make loud moaning noises that bounce in an echo off of the ceiling and back down off of the sheet of water that barely ripples as they float across, back and forth, sometimes in a zig-zag, sometimes in a circle. their wheelchairs stand at attention along the side, towels draped over the seats, more caregivers leaning against the wall behind them. it takes a long time to hoist the children onto the lift and up and out of the water, to strap them into their chairs and wheel them into the locker room. later, when henry and i shiver in towels through the showers and to our things the children are still being dressed. the workers lay them naked on towels on the benches and dress them. henry is curious to see them and i feel curious, too. i am embarrassed for them to be naked and unknowing under the fluorescent lights. and then, to my shame, i'm embarrassed to see them there and i try to hurry henry past so that he doesn't see them. i grasp his hand tightly and appreciate his liveliness, no small joy to appreciate.

Friday, February 18, 2005

hello, hello, hello -- is there anybody in there?

it's squinting weather over here -- sunny and cold. jude and henry both sneeze at the sun. photic sneeze reflex. i do it too. we're all sneezing and the february sun shines. according to the limited reading i've done this morning on the subject my sons and i will never be allowed to be combat pilots because of this sneezing reflex. i hope that this genetic abnormality of mine that i've passed on to these boys will not be something they will hold against me after watching john wayne soaring the skies in flying tigers. i have no fighter pilot ambitions, but will these rosy cheeked golden boys feel otherwise?

a new season of survivor began last night. we taped it and watched when the boys were sleeping. we watched as we ate cashew chicken and hot and sour soup from the overseas chinese buffet, where the tiny girl who always waits on us told ernie that for the last five years she's eaten general tso's chicken on a daily basis. how does she weigh 85 pounds (including striped t-shirts, ill-fitting blue jeans and glorious shining ponytail of blue-black hair) on such a diet? maybe she only eats one piece of the general, and not the entire aluminum platter full of it, along with the box of sticky rice and the dark red saucy juice that the chicken sits in, steaming and salty. she must avoid the eggroll that comes with the dinner and i'm quite certain that she does not eat the sugared donuts that come in waxed paper.

survior looks promising this season. they rid themselves of the singing lunatic who was wearing the sort of slip mothers wear during sunday afternoon naps -- white and old-fashioned -- along with large black underwear that was visible through the slip after she swam to the get-away boat.



and here we are at another weekend. my students have a group lesson here tomorrow, which means that they all have next week's lesson tomorrow during the same hour, meaning there will be no students at all next week, meaning i'm feeling a sort of elation that i should not put into words.

the mailman is walking across our yard with his hoodie cinched around his mustachioed face. jude is chewing a block and humming to himself. henry sleeps. the sun still shines.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

mrs.



buzzing around on espresso. for my ernie-valentine i put together a caffeine high box consisting of this:



and this:



something like this:



a hazelnut this:



and a shining jar full of this:



so this morning we bubbled the brew and pumped the froth and i downed a cup of it in the gilded sunshine of my study. then i folded laundry, put it away, cleaned the playroom, the bedroom, the hallway. then i did a little dancing with boys still in pjs. all before breakfast so here i am still shaking and it's almost eleven a.m.

and ernie gave us this (which of course was promptly and excitedly confiscated and hoarded by henry):



one of these:



a giant one of these:



lots and lots of these:



and a mystery chocolate that also had caramel and hazelnuts. oh boy.

and, best of all, a love letter with a spa-massage gift certificate inside.

henry was sick and grumpy all day. he kept asking for tylenol. so he dimetapped his way through dinner and passed out at seven o'clock, not stirring for eleven hours. jude was more lively so we played with him for a long, quiet time while eating chocolate on the living room floor.

Monday, February 14, 2005

maybe i should wear my cowboy hat to work tomorrow



happy valentine's day one and all.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

i need you to be here with me not way over in a bucket seat

a sickness is coming on. my head feels as though a balloon is being blown up inside it -- the helium kind -- as though i'm at the fair and a laughing little man (with red lipstick and white-face painted onto his thin lips and high cheekbones) is filling the balloon in my head with a long shrrrrp squeak. a sickness is indeed coming on.

it's the eve of lovers. it rained all day. henry skipped down the sidewalk with his umbrella. the river was high, the barges sitting in the muddy water, waiting to drift away on a lazy working day. the trees on the banks stand mud-footed up to their knees in the river. the rain on the roof is loud and sounds as though it is raining harder than it is.

if the rain lets up we'll walk to the library tomorrow. if i possessed any of the spirit i used to ooze from every pore we'd walk and splash through the rain. the spirit of adventure is gone -- too many logistics, like sore throats and handfuls of borrowed books, and the clean-up of muddy chunks from the living room floor while henry and jude sit soggy and screaming. if i could hire a professional lozenge and a book carrying butler and a dust-buster swiffer weilding custodian i might have a little more zip and sparkle. what has happened to me?

tomorrow we will finish our valentines. this means that jude will crawl on the floor looking for bits of paper to eat and henry will smear paint all over his body and i will cut hearts and micro-manage the use of glue. then we will deliver them to neighboring lovelies, clean house and i will cook up a valentine feast for the three loves i love most.



a bob dylan valentine.

Can't you hear that rooster crowin'?
Rabbit runnin' down across the road
Underneath the bridge where the water flowed through
So happy just to see you smile
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.

Can't you hear that motor turnin'?
Automobile comin' into style
Comin' down the road for a country mile or two
So happy just to see you smile
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.

The night passed away so quickly
It always does when you're with me.

Can't you feel that sun a-shinin'?
Ground hog runnin' by the country stream
This must be the day that all of my dreams come true
So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.

So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.
New morning . . .

Friday, February 11, 2005

a land as green and sweet as the ocean is salt and blue

there is little to eat in the house. we need to shop. i made half and half this morning with heavy whipping cream (leftover from the frosting makings of last week's cake) and milk. the kitchen is a pile of bowls and forks and crumbs and strawberry tops. the house smells of coffee and needs a good airing.

henry sleeps late this morning. he stayed up late acting out the part of the scarecrow as he watched dorothy and company gambol their way to see the wizard (if ever a wever a wizard there was). he falls with the scarecrow, clasping his hands over his heart and pretends to mouth "my heart all full of pain." he's a gem.

jude is beginning to creep through the house with a backwards scooting sort of crawl. he is rather quick at it and i am plotting out the necessary gates and door closings to keep him safe.



and it is cold again. more snow stubbornly sticking to the grass. i want to go barefoot to check the mail. i want to start the day getting muddy in the garden. i want to eat watermelon. when summer comes my mother and i have plans to sell bread and flowers at the farmer's market. we will bake the bread and carry it in baskets and will grow the flowers and carry them in jars. we will pitch our tent at the end of her mini-van and will wave to the brown farmers whose knobby fingers lay out cucumbers, to the young girls wearing jean shorts sitting perched atop piles of sweet corn in the backs of working trucks. and if we don't sell anything we will eat the bread ourselves and wind the flowers through our hair, making crowns for henry and jude, the rest bunched and wilting on the kitchen table.

"i put on my boatlike hat in the morning and enter the marketplace but by noon i am home again, lying down on a slab reading some hieroglyphics." --collins

Monday, February 07, 2005

like all the better wives



a new green sweatshirt.

everything is wet here. the trees are slick and black and silver. i opened the door (to go out and push the mail the rest of the way down into the mail slot so that i could go back inside and pull it out of the hole in the wall behind the door, ripping rips into the covers of periodicals and supermarket fliers) and was accosted by a strong spring scented wind that took me by surprise and caused me to stand in the doorway in barefeet, orange pants and large smile. winter will be over soon, these days, these winds, seem to scream of it.

i made an enormous chocolate cake for ben's birthday. the thing was beautiful in the beginning -- tall and fine and shiny and black. and then the frosting was running and oozed down the sides in a puddle on my mother's green cake plate. i put the mess in the fridge overnight and tried to forget about the picture in the cookbook. i should stick to cheesecake. everyone ate fat slices of the cake with ice cream. even grandma scarfed it down while declaring her ever-present declaration "i'm not a chocolate lover." henry blew out the eighteen candles along with ben. henry's excitement was contagious. i remember when ben was henry's size, it was frighteningly recent. the time cannot go this quickly for henry. i am sick at the thought.

more photos by henry.









Thursday, February 03, 2005

one more cup of coffee

i feel like i've been teaching all day long. "chord girl" came tonight and i made her cry. i wasn't mean, i merely asked, "did you practice this week?" and of course she hadn't practiced, i don't need to ask because i can tell when she's fumbling around for the GM9 chord that she's totally lost. she starts crying and saying that she had a bad week and was "really out of it" tonight. i felt bad when she cried and smeared her mascara in a black smudge on her lower eyelid.

the boys were up early again this morning. these late nights of mine don't bring success in the early morning darkness. henry wakes jude up and henry jumps around while jude giggles and kicks and ernie and i mourn the loss of sleep and grump our way into wakefulness.



Wednesday, February 02, 2005

two of us wearing raincoats

it was sunny this afternoon so we splashed through melted snowmud puddles to the park. jude was happy to be outside. he sits still in the stroller and looks around. his hands were cold when we left and he didn't protest when i tucked everything but his nose and eyes under the blanket. he was sleepy and the fresh and cold is making for a good night.



the park was empty with the exception of two elderly women with spoiled shiny dogs and a fat male jogger in a red sweatshirt. he was breathing loudly when he trotted past us but managed to wheeze out a hello to henry.

henry went down a few slides and across a bridge and kicked sand onto the sidewalk. he was fascinated by the geese that honked their way over the park and the hill and our house and beyond the driver's training facility and the prison and the empty fields of corn stubble. henry is into counting lately so we count everything. too many geese for counting, though.

these winter days are dragging on. i try to remember how much i longed for cold winter winds when i was hot and sticky in july, my hair in pins and poking every which way in an effort to stay away from the damp skin of my neck and my face. we had a noisy cicada in the tree outside the bedroom window. he was loud. with his chirping and the silver fan blowing over us at high speed we couldn't hear each other whisper in the bed at night. today i can hardly remember feeling hot and crabby. i'm ready for this winter sleepiness to go.