Where did the Planets come from?
Where did People come from?
Does it hurt when a baby comes out of your tummy?
Can we get a new sister? Because mine died.
How do people NOT have babies?
How many days was Maddy when she died?
What would happen if everyone just lived one day?
If you had a baby would you still love me as much?
There's something so deeply philosophical about Bella lately -- when she's not in a droning whine "Moommmmy, I'mmm hunnggry" -- that I ache to give her Carl Sagan and Hobbes and Locke and Shakespeare for her birthday, not the goldfish which she has adamantly requested. Questions that aren't posited just to be annoying or waste time or find the weak spot, but that demand answers more than a sentence long.
Most of them.
And I struggle to discover from whence these questions are coming: I am not pregnant, I am -- to my untrained and biased and eternally hopeful eye -- perhaps even slightly lighter around the middle, not the other way around. None of her friends have recently acquired siblings (although the sibling question came on a day when she went out with a good friend and her younger brother. I have a feeling friend is feeling some things through, out loud). We have not been watching old Cosmos reruns, or discussing Darwin at the dinner table. I am sure that all to most of these are standard-issue four-going-on-five philosophical "how does the world work" questions, but for me they seem to revolve around common themes lately: life, death, the meaning of the beginning, and the end. And of course, what comes next. There's always the corner, beckoning, and to which I can only shrug my shoulders and say with absolute certainty, "I don't know."
For me there's a subtext here, and it's Maddy. I have no idea what Bella's subtext is. Probably Spongebob.
At times she seems 63, and others, 13. Because you see, the other annoying habit she's picked up in addition to questioning the age and origin of the solar system, is announcing to everyone within earshot, "I have a boyfriend."
(No, I mean that. Today we went to the zoo, just the two of us, and she wanted to ride the camel. Which she had to do with another single child. So I finally got her up to the front of the line, left her there so I could run around and get her picture, and I heard her announce to the complete stranger camel guy who took her ticket nanoseconds ago, "I have a boyfriend.")
And again, I have no idea from whence this concept sprouted. I've been paying more attention to her programming (she watches an hour, but I always go do something else, so I honestly don't know if Olivia has "very special!" episodes, or Spongebob's sidekick Patrick has untoward affairs), and as far as I can tell she is not getting this attitude from television -- no one on her shows even dates (unless it's an older sibling, I've noticed in an ep of this and that, here and there, but interesting, they never use the term "boy/girl-friend", usually it's a "date" gone awry for comic purposes), and they tend to be mixed sex groups of friends who hang and which I find quite healthy all the way around. (Unless I'm missing something regarding Agent Oso, cuz that's new, and I'm sure a panda-type bear in a vest gets all sorts of attention from the ladies.) (I jest.)
I cringe. She's not yet five, and she's so proud to have this, to own this term. I've quizzed her nonchalantly on the issue, and she claims "he's a boy who's a friend!" and more to the point, the only boy at her school apparently who will actually play with her, and not push, hit, or otherwise tease and torment and knock down her stack of carefully placed blocks. And I remind myself that no more than two months ago, she was discussing marriage with her "girlfriend," and specifically, who would have the babies. So I'm trying not to get too (too) worked up, and I kinda ignore it and let it ride, and remind her periodically that "you know, you're too young for a boyfriend," but it doesn't seem to be dying down.
My suspicion is that this verbage and interest comes from the friend of ours who just got married after a whirlwind romance. I'm hoping it all dissipates with the rose petals.
We're pushing five here, and I do mean pushing. She seems so confident and content most of the time, and yet sometimes I can just sense her surfing, trying to catch her balance as the paradigms move under her feet. Sometimes she is so easy and fun I wonder why I haven't attempted to construct a sibling; sometimes she is so unsettling I can't imagine having the strength to parent another; and sometimes she is so singularly incredible that I struggle to remember why I ever wanted another child in the first place.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Lightning
Last Tuesday we woke up to . . . . darkness. Since Bella is occasionally sneaky like that, asking me if she can turn on the television or get some juice when it's 5:45 a.m., I had to look at the clock to make sure it really was 7:00 a.m., not 3:30 a.m. We cranked up the tv, started the coffee pot, turned NPR on in the kitchen, flipped open a laptop to check headlines, and I started methodically making Bella's lunch for school-camp. All to the delightful backdrop of one of the most wicked thunder and lightning displays I've ever experienced. Flashing, cracking, booming, dishes rattling, rain spilling over the gutters.
And suddenly, the thunder actually hit a split second before the lightning, there was a blinding boom, and NPR shut off. The lights stayed on, curiously, but Mr. ABF noted that we had lost our internet connection. We thought we may have experienced a direct hit, but just the radio and not the lights? Not the television? We continued our morning, and less than an hour later Mr. ABF got in the car to drive Bella off, and clicked the button to open our brand-new, two-week old automatic gate opener (part of the kitchen reno was a driveway to get the cars off the street) and it was dead. Deader than dead.
Upon his return, we went in the basement to examine what the deal was. The cable that brings internet into our house (but not our televisions; we're satellite people) runs through a box, which was fine. The light was on. Everything on the other side of that box, however -- the wireless routers and so forth -- were blitzed. The radio happens to be right next to the box, we just rebooted that and it was fine. The wire from the gate opener happens to run out of the house hear the cable box as well, and the fuse box to the gate was black and still smoking.
We apparently got hit by lightning.
As if you didn't know that already.
My theory, and I'm no meteorologist, is that lightning actually hit the lightning rod on our house, which runs to ground right by where all this stuff enters our house. And the shock entered the house through the cable wire, not the electric. But whatever -- we're a few hundred bucks out of routing stuff (thankfully the only computer directly hooked up to the cable was on the third floor, and it was unaffected), and we're to disassemble, dig up, and send in the entire gate mechanism to see if they can fix it. It was a few days without internet.
And a few days of pondering odds. We joke about being struck by lightning, but according to the paper, 2,000 other people reported lightning strikes last Tuesday a.m. (including a friend about 20 miles west, who lost two televisions, both hooked up to cable. No other appliances). Sometimes lightning doesn't just hit you. And if it actually hits the rod, is that a good thing?
:::
No sooner did we get internet access back, than we all piled in the car to go to NY for a friend's wedding. It was his second marriage, as his first ended right around the time he reconnected with Mr. ABF at our old location. I remember a lot of dinners where we invited this guy over and ate and chatted until late in the night. He later told Mr. ABF those dinners were a sort of lifeline for him. We proceeded to witness a good seven years of dates and girlfriends, some of which were deemed important enough to tell us about or even meet; some, apparently, not so much. He moved to NY, we moved here, we all stayed in touch.
For Spring Break, we crashed at his place for a few days while exploring NYC with Bella. He had just started a relationship with a new woman -- in fact, I believe we as a family accompanied them on dates three and four. She was lovely in appearance and spirit, and I was personally won over when Bella offered her a butterfly tattoo and she acted as though Bella was presenting her with a spa makeover. As we were leaving, friend told us he thought this was it -- this was the woman. I think the words "marriage" and "wife" and "killing my J-Date account" actually left his lips, in all our presence, and I wondered if he shouldn't dial it back.
A few weeks later, friend called and asked for Bella. We put her on the phone, and from our end we caught,
"Mmmhmmm, mhhhmm, oh. Yes. Purple. Ok. Here's my dad."
Turns out they're getting married, and Bella just agreed to be a flower girl. In June. It was April, end of. They had been dating approximately 50 days, and were planning to get married on their 100th day of knowing each other. I guess when you know, you know. Sometimes you're struck by lightning.
It was my first wedding since Maddy, and it was a bit strange. I had forgotten how overwhelming positive and happy and upbeat weddings are, and I seriously slouched in my seat, hoping the couple wouldn't catch sight of us and realize how when the rabbi said that "for better or for worse" part he really meant it. Sure, at the rehearsal dinner and the actual night of there was heartwrenching oration on how both the bride and groom each had lost a parent, and how both parents had remarried. (I know how much our friend's loss continues to touch him, and I'm relieved and grateful he found a soulmate with a similar missing piece.) This was followed by examples of how the parents showed them "how to love again," which I suppose for me was a bit touching-slash-bullshit.
Bella was a flower girl, decked out in floofy lilac, sprinkling rose petals. She was in heaven. She continually asked where the bride or groom were located, so she could offer hugs and ask "When are we eating cake?" "When is the chair dance?" At the end of the evening, as we were leaving, we slipped into the photo booth they couple had set up for the guests and Bella and I held hands, jumped up on the trampoline, and the flash went off.
:::
And suddenly, the thunder actually hit a split second before the lightning, there was a blinding boom, and NPR shut off. The lights stayed on, curiously, but Mr. ABF noted that we had lost our internet connection. We thought we may have experienced a direct hit, but just the radio and not the lights? Not the television? We continued our morning, and less than an hour later Mr. ABF got in the car to drive Bella off, and clicked the button to open our brand-new, two-week old automatic gate opener (part of the kitchen reno was a driveway to get the cars off the street) and it was dead. Deader than dead.
Upon his return, we went in the basement to examine what the deal was. The cable that brings internet into our house (but not our televisions; we're satellite people) runs through a box, which was fine. The light was on. Everything on the other side of that box, however -- the wireless routers and so forth -- were blitzed. The radio happens to be right next to the box, we just rebooted that and it was fine. The wire from the gate opener happens to run out of the house hear the cable box as well, and the fuse box to the gate was black and still smoking.
We apparently got hit by lightning.
As if you didn't know that already.
My theory, and I'm no meteorologist, is that lightning actually hit the lightning rod on our house, which runs to ground right by where all this stuff enters our house. And the shock entered the house through the cable wire, not the electric. But whatever -- we're a few hundred bucks out of routing stuff (thankfully the only computer directly hooked up to the cable was on the third floor, and it was unaffected), and we're to disassemble, dig up, and send in the entire gate mechanism to see if they can fix it. It was a few days without internet.
And a few days of pondering odds. We joke about being struck by lightning, but according to the paper, 2,000 other people reported lightning strikes last Tuesday a.m. (including a friend about 20 miles west, who lost two televisions, both hooked up to cable. No other appliances). Sometimes lightning doesn't just hit you. And if it actually hits the rod, is that a good thing?
:::
No sooner did we get internet access back, than we all piled in the car to go to NY for a friend's wedding. It was his second marriage, as his first ended right around the time he reconnected with Mr. ABF at our old location. I remember a lot of dinners where we invited this guy over and ate and chatted until late in the night. He later told Mr. ABF those dinners were a sort of lifeline for him. We proceeded to witness a good seven years of dates and girlfriends, some of which were deemed important enough to tell us about or even meet; some, apparently, not so much. He moved to NY, we moved here, we all stayed in touch.
For Spring Break, we crashed at his place for a few days while exploring NYC with Bella. He had just started a relationship with a new woman -- in fact, I believe we as a family accompanied them on dates three and four. She was lovely in appearance and spirit, and I was personally won over when Bella offered her a butterfly tattoo and she acted as though Bella was presenting her with a spa makeover. As we were leaving, friend told us he thought this was it -- this was the woman. I think the words "marriage" and "wife" and "killing my J-Date account" actually left his lips, in all our presence, and I wondered if he shouldn't dial it back.
A few weeks later, friend called and asked for Bella. We put her on the phone, and from our end we caught,
"Mmmhmmm, mhhhmm, oh. Yes. Purple. Ok. Here's my dad."
Turns out they're getting married, and Bella just agreed to be a flower girl. In June. It was April, end of. They had been dating approximately 50 days, and were planning to get married on their 100th day of knowing each other. I guess when you know, you know. Sometimes you're struck by lightning.
It was my first wedding since Maddy, and it was a bit strange. I had forgotten how overwhelming positive and happy and upbeat weddings are, and I seriously slouched in my seat, hoping the couple wouldn't catch sight of us and realize how when the rabbi said that "for better or for worse" part he really meant it. Sure, at the rehearsal dinner and the actual night of there was heartwrenching oration on how both the bride and groom each had lost a parent, and how both parents had remarried. (I know how much our friend's loss continues to touch him, and I'm relieved and grateful he found a soulmate with a similar missing piece.) This was followed by examples of how the parents showed them "how to love again," which I suppose for me was a bit touching-slash-bullshit.
Bella was a flower girl, decked out in floofy lilac, sprinkling rose petals. She was in heaven. She continually asked where the bride or groom were located, so she could offer hugs and ask "When are we eating cake?" "When is the chair dance?" At the end of the evening, as we were leaving, we slipped into the photo booth they couple had set up for the guests and Bella and I held hands, jumped up on the trampoline, and the flash went off.
:::
There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically.
"Maybe," the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.
"Maybe," replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
"Maybe," answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
"Maybe," said the farmer.
-- "Maybe," Stories from Zen Buddhism
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Bax
(Scene: Fenceline, muggy evening, Mr. ABF greets new neighbor and one of her three kids.)
Mr. ABF: "I'm [Mr. ABF] by the way . . . "
Neighbor: "Oh, I remember! You're [Mr. ABF] and Tash, and your daughter is Bella, and your dog . . . your dog is . . . . Maddy?
Mr. ABF: ???!!!!?????
Neighbor: "No wait, Max. Max and Buddy. Isn't that funny, I combined them!"
:::
Mr. ABF walked over where I was lovingly grilling our salmon dinner and recounted this by beginning, "So I just had a weird encounter." And we both wound up laughing so hard there were tears. Our collective sense of humor has indeed twisted.
Mr. ABF: "I'm [Mr. ABF] by the way . . . "
Neighbor: "Oh, I remember! You're [Mr. ABF] and Tash, and your daughter is Bella, and your dog . . . your dog is . . . . Maddy?
Mr. ABF: ???!!!!?????
Neighbor: "No wait, Max. Max and Buddy. Isn't that funny, I combined them!"
:::
Mr. ABF walked over where I was lovingly grilling our salmon dinner and recounted this by beginning, "So I just had a weird encounter." And we both wound up laughing so hard there were tears. Our collective sense of humor has indeed twisted.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sometimes When It Rains
. . . it shits.
I had a pithy little memorial day post spinning around yesterday, but was totally creamed by other signs that the universe is indeed out to get us:
Turtle and Monkey's Mom discovered that the woman her husband had an affair with? Is Pregnant.
Sue, who I personally think has found a new voice with everything thrown her way of late, suffered a seizure last Friday. Her husband C. has the story on his blog.
And finally, Chance, who has suffered more than enough loss for one lifetime, found out that her final round of Surrogate IVF did not work out. Kym's beta started lowish, and dropped. There are no embryos in the freezer, and there's no more money on the tree.
I hate singling out stories when I know there's so much more hurt out there that I'm missing and not personally noting, but these three really twisted my weekend into knots and made me flip off karma and the universe more than once. I tried so hard to strip naked and dance in traffic and divert the bad luck in my direction, but apparently that's not how it works.
Please, if you haven't already, lend some support. Toss in some swear words. Fluff up the pillows. It's the least we can do.
I had a pithy little memorial day post spinning around yesterday, but was totally creamed by other signs that the universe is indeed out to get us:
Turtle and Monkey's Mom discovered that the woman her husband had an affair with? Is Pregnant.
Sue, who I personally think has found a new voice with everything thrown her way of late, suffered a seizure last Friday. Her husband C. has the story on his blog.
And finally, Chance, who has suffered more than enough loss for one lifetime, found out that her final round of Surrogate IVF did not work out. Kym's beta started lowish, and dropped. There are no embryos in the freezer, and there's no more money on the tree.
I hate singling out stories when I know there's so much more hurt out there that I'm missing and not personally noting, but these three really twisted my weekend into knots and made me flip off karma and the universe more than once. I tried so hard to strip naked and dance in traffic and divert the bad luck in my direction, but apparently that's not how it works.
Please, if you haven't already, lend some support. Toss in some swear words. Fluff up the pillows. It's the least we can do.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Seeds of Life?
It's not often that the metaphor becomes reality, but here the last few weekends I've been working quite hard on the new kitchen garden.
During the kitchen reno, some doors were moved around, and this lovely patch outside the kitchen -- facing south -- was dug up and cornered off. This spring we brought in mushroom soil and tilled it in. Bella and I started some seeds inside (went a bit better than last year -- only managed to brutally murder some cherry tomatoes, and for some reason the rosemary self-aborted? I'm terrible with rosemary. I understand for most people rosemary is akin to a chia pet, the one thing they can keep alive by sprinkling beer on it when they open one. Not so much, me), and sowed the rest into the ground. We planted a marigold border, and finished that off with multi-colored globe amaranth seed.
Right now, it is a nicely squared off patch of dirt. If things go as they should, in a few months we should have: broccoli, carrots, beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumber, beets, lettuce, arugula, and a host of herbs including one entire row of basil for my Italian husband. There should -- allegedly -- be sunflowers against the back wall, and cheerful flowers in the corners.
It's very nice in theory, isn't it.
Once it was in, and I was purposefully watering with the sprayer, I tried to self-analyze (shit, am I good at that now) about how I felt about my endeavor. And that's when I realized the irony of life imitating metaphor: the first thing that popped in my head was how this felt as if I had a positive pregnancy stick in my hand. It's "implanted." In theory, it's one of those "positive" symbols. But I know nothing of gardening, right now it just looks like brown soil, and (to me) it will seem nothing short of a Biblical miracle if there is food to harvest at the end of the day from these mere seeds I've jammed in crooked rows. As I've told my neighbors, "If we get vegetables from this, it's a bonus."
(To gently reiterate and avoid any confusion: METAPHOR, LIFE-STORY-USUALLY-EMPLOYING METAPHOR, SWAPPING PLACES. THERE IS NO POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST. THERE IS A GARDEN. Kinda like bringing a metaphor to life, but without having to clean horse parts off your bat and shoes. Just thought I'd clarify.)
One of the contractors who worked on the kitchen and "consulted" on the garden swung by this week -- she's one of these types that maintains a self-sufficient farm in a yard the size of a postage stamp, replete with chickens and goats. And she was incrredibly impressed by our plot, and I gave her the line about it looking nice in theory, and wouldn't it be awesome if vegetables actually grew from those seeds?
"Why wouldn't they?" she asked. In complete seriousness.
Ha ha ha, why wouldn't they, IS SHE FUCKING KIDDING ME?!
Just because you put seeds in dirt and add water and sunshine does not mean you get a beet (or god forbid, some rosemary) in a few months. No sir-ee. I mean, why should it work? Not like I know what I'm doing. Then I read this article about lead in urban gardens, and I'm utterly convinced I will give us all brain damage should the garden actually produce something and I prepare grilled eggplant and beet salad, so this week on my to-do list is packing up some dirt to send off to the EPA for testing.
Seriously, I just wanted a little vegetable garden. Instead I got a boatload of cautious pessimism, irony, and paranoia.
Sounds about right.
(Poison Beets!)
During the kitchen reno, some doors were moved around, and this lovely patch outside the kitchen -- facing south -- was dug up and cornered off. This spring we brought in mushroom soil and tilled it in. Bella and I started some seeds inside (went a bit better than last year -- only managed to brutally murder some cherry tomatoes, and for some reason the rosemary self-aborted? I'm terrible with rosemary. I understand for most people rosemary is akin to a chia pet, the one thing they can keep alive by sprinkling beer on it when they open one. Not so much, me), and sowed the rest into the ground. We planted a marigold border, and finished that off with multi-colored globe amaranth seed.
Right now, it is a nicely squared off patch of dirt. If things go as they should, in a few months we should have: broccoli, carrots, beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumber, beets, lettuce, arugula, and a host of herbs including one entire row of basil for my Italian husband. There should -- allegedly -- be sunflowers against the back wall, and cheerful flowers in the corners.
It's very nice in theory, isn't it.
Once it was in, and I was purposefully watering with the sprayer, I tried to self-analyze (shit, am I good at that now) about how I felt about my endeavor. And that's when I realized the irony of life imitating metaphor: the first thing that popped in my head was how this felt as if I had a positive pregnancy stick in my hand. It's "implanted." In theory, it's one of those "positive" symbols. But I know nothing of gardening, right now it just looks like brown soil, and (to me) it will seem nothing short of a Biblical miracle if there is food to harvest at the end of the day from these mere seeds I've jammed in crooked rows. As I've told my neighbors, "If we get vegetables from this, it's a bonus."
(To gently reiterate and avoid any confusion: METAPHOR, LIFE-STORY-USUALLY-EMPLOYING METAPHOR, SWAPPING PLACES. THERE IS NO POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST. THERE IS A GARDEN. Kinda like bringing a metaphor to life, but without having to clean horse parts off your bat and shoes. Just thought I'd clarify.)
One of the contractors who worked on the kitchen and "consulted" on the garden swung by this week -- she's one of these types that maintains a self-sufficient farm in a yard the size of a postage stamp, replete with chickens and goats. And she was incrredibly impressed by our plot, and I gave her the line about it looking nice in theory, and wouldn't it be awesome if vegetables actually grew from those seeds?
"Why wouldn't they?" she asked. In complete seriousness.
Ha ha ha, why wouldn't they, IS SHE FUCKING KIDDING ME?!
Just because you put seeds in dirt and add water and sunshine does not mean you get a beet (or god forbid, some rosemary) in a few months. No sir-ee. I mean, why should it work? Not like I know what I'm doing. Then I read this article about lead in urban gardens, and I'm utterly convinced I will give us all brain damage should the garden actually produce something and I prepare grilled eggplant and beet salad, so this week on my to-do list is packing up some dirt to send off to the EPA for testing.
Seriously, I just wanted a little vegetable garden. Instead I got a boatload of cautious pessimism, irony, and paranoia.
Sounds about right.
(Poison Beets!)
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Happy. Mother's. Day.
Deconstruct THAT one.
I've got a post up on, er, you know, that thing that's happening today. Today, at GITW.
I've got a post up on, er, you know, that thing that's happening today. Today, at GITW.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Lipstick Cherry All Over the Lens
Spring is here, that fickle bitch, what with a week encompassing a prickly 92 degrees and a damp, cool 54. There are fields of weeds to be pulled up, there is yellow-green fuzz on my car and surfaces in my house near windows that I deigned to open the last nice day. We're stockpiling alright -- on claratin, flonase and the like, and I feel like printing shirts for me and Bella that announce, "ALLERGIES! NOT FLU!"
Spring is pretty coupled with problematic, and ultimately makes me feel like I should be doing more than I'm doing, and, well, feeling more than I'm feeling.
I've noticed before, but never so much until this year, that one thing I like so much about this neighborhood is spring. It seems as if every house, even the most ramshackle, boarded up, neglected heaps have something in the front yard -- be it a scraggly, volunteer dogwood tree, a few bulbs that were probably deposited by a run-away squirrel, a technicolor fuscia-hued azalea in desperate need of pruning and shaping. There is color there, as if mother nature said, "Dang, this place needs a hit of rogue," in hopes that the human passers-by would overlook the dirt-filled yard, the sunken porch, the stump overgrown with ravenous vine. And this time of year? It works. This old trick works, and my eye is drawn to the lonely clump of red tulips, or the appropriately-named weeping cherry, or the grape-like clumps of bright purple wisteria -- even if their ancient support has long-ago collapsed, and they're now slithering across an un-mowed lawn. The dilapidated that exists in a few pockets will soon be overpowered by a layer of green, and I will only come to realize how dumpy some of the nearby abodes are in late fall, when the leaves finally drop and there is no amount of snow that hides the droopy shutters.
Sometimes it's a bit whorish, but spring's a welcome makeover.
(Lest I embarrass my neighbors, this is a unkempt corner of my yard, where someone thought it wise to randomly plant azalea of varying colors in the middle of unruly, weedy groundcover.)
:::
I played violin seriously from age four to twenty-two, and until college, studied with the same teacher. She was a Juliard-trained woman, who came of professional age at a time when orchestras were still edgy about hiring women (their stamina for rehearsal and uteri exploding with babies in need of attention were undoubtedly ticks against them in the hiring process), and -- much like me, now that I think of it -- arrived in New York City, sight-unseen, from the south. She was proper, she was elegant, and you could tell through her music that her cool and sophisticated demeanor masked a river of romance that ran through her bones.
She taught kids like me for a living, and had crazy hours -- she eventually ran a studio, travelled in order to meet demand elsewhere in the Phoenix area, worked camps and master classes, and taught taught taught, six days a week, beginning at 7:00 a.m. and often running through the dinner hour.
It was not uncommon to arrive at the studio, sometime after my school had let out in the late afternoon, 4:30 p.m. or so, and while I warmed up, she would pull out her compact, and carefully apply lipstick -- always something cheery. For years I was too young to take much away from this ritual, but at some point, I wondered why she was putting lipstick on for me, for a violin lesson, for fuck's sake.
Silly me.
At some point, I'm not sure whether the wondering got the best of me, or she volunteered the information, but in a late-afternoon practice room, as she focused on her mirror, she said, "If you're ever tired, just put on a little lipstick. Wakes you right up."
All this time, she was fucking exhausted, drinking coffee out of her thermos, escorting me and countless others through pouty twinkle-twinkle to stress-laden competitions and auditions and tapings, always with a freshly made pair of lips.
She taught me so much, this teacher. She saw me weekly, for fourteen years. She was in charge of selecting my music, and while my friends were put through the usual paces of Bloch and Bruch and Mendelssohn by their instructors, she sensed something else in me, and put in front of me raw and passionate, wildly-fun and painfully-aching Wieniawski and Lalo. I realized only in retrospect that she, of all people, gleaned a personality that I was only coming to understand myself. And yet I remember so clearly, things like this hot Arizona afternoon, wandering through my scales, while she dabbed her LateAfternoonDoldrums Red freshly made mouth on a dainty handkerchief.
:::
My neighborhood springtime lipstick application and memories of Mrs. M coincided nicely with Julia's timely piece at GITW on how we take care of ourselves -- our outward selves and appearances. I didn't cut my hair in '07, in large part because I didn't want to go back to the stylist who did my hair at 39w and have to explain the whole fucking thing; and in part because I simply didn't care. My eyebrows grew shabby. My skin, already fucked over by progesterone supplements and pregnancy, exploded in a torrent of stress and hormones. It didn't help that I rarely bothered to wash it. I brushed my teeth if I had the energy, I gave up flossing. The makeup I had bought expressly for my brother's wedding, a month before Maddy was conceived, lay in the drawer collecting dust. I didn't want to buy new clothes for my new, large, ungainly, memory-laden and depressing body, so I wore sweats and big t-shirts well into summer. I looked the part, there was no mistaking that something about me was completely, totally wrong. Could be grief; could be flu.
My first foray out into groups and crowds was a local fundraiser held at a neighbor's house, in May? June? Well, it seemed awfully soon to me, whenever it was. I pulled a comb through my unkempt hair, poured my body into a cheap sundress, decided no amount of makeup could possibly do justice to my skin. But heeding some advice from the crevices of my memory, I pulled out an ancient tube of lipstick and carefully applied it.
Not for anyone else, mind you. Not to look better, certainly -- my mouth was in no way going to detract from my baggy eyes or my sorry midsection.
Just a quick coating of Wake the fuck up Pink to get me out the door.
:::
Bella returned home from a party last week, and nestled in her goodie bag was a plastic container of lipgloss on a string. While I can still (!) pull the ol' bluff of "Hey, you don't like gum so I'm throwing it out, ok?" (much like I make a face and explain, "Eew, this drink has BUBBLES in it. You don't like bubbles. I'll find you some water." These scams aren't long for the making, are they), there was no getting rid of the MAKEUP. She seriously ground her finger into the pink goo, and mashed it on her lips, so she more resembled The Joker than any angelic child model made up beyond their years. It was depressing (she's FOUR!) and simultaneously fucking hilarious.
"How do I look?" Bella asked, with a mature downward glance that screamed for a Louis Vitton briefcase, and possibly a fan to blow some wind through the wisps of hair around her face.
"Beautiful."
Sometimes it's not about how it alters the outside, but how it makes you feel on the inside.
Spring is pretty coupled with problematic, and ultimately makes me feel like I should be doing more than I'm doing, and, well, feeling more than I'm feeling.
I've noticed before, but never so much until this year, that one thing I like so much about this neighborhood is spring. It seems as if every house, even the most ramshackle, boarded up, neglected heaps have something in the front yard -- be it a scraggly, volunteer dogwood tree, a few bulbs that were probably deposited by a run-away squirrel, a technicolor fuscia-hued azalea in desperate need of pruning and shaping. There is color there, as if mother nature said, "Dang, this place needs a hit of rogue," in hopes that the human passers-by would overlook the dirt-filled yard, the sunken porch, the stump overgrown with ravenous vine. And this time of year? It works. This old trick works, and my eye is drawn to the lonely clump of red tulips, or the appropriately-named weeping cherry, or the grape-like clumps of bright purple wisteria -- even if their ancient support has long-ago collapsed, and they're now slithering across an un-mowed lawn. The dilapidated that exists in a few pockets will soon be overpowered by a layer of green, and I will only come to realize how dumpy some of the nearby abodes are in late fall, when the leaves finally drop and there is no amount of snow that hides the droopy shutters.
Sometimes it's a bit whorish, but spring's a welcome makeover.
(Lest I embarrass my neighbors, this is a unkempt corner of my yard, where someone thought it wise to randomly plant azalea of varying colors in the middle of unruly, weedy groundcover.)
:::
I played violin seriously from age four to twenty-two, and until college, studied with the same teacher. She was a Juliard-trained woman, who came of professional age at a time when orchestras were still edgy about hiring women (their stamina for rehearsal and uteri exploding with babies in need of attention were undoubtedly ticks against them in the hiring process), and -- much like me, now that I think of it -- arrived in New York City, sight-unseen, from the south. She was proper, she was elegant, and you could tell through her music that her cool and sophisticated demeanor masked a river of romance that ran through her bones.
She taught kids like me for a living, and had crazy hours -- she eventually ran a studio, travelled in order to meet demand elsewhere in the Phoenix area, worked camps and master classes, and taught taught taught, six days a week, beginning at 7:00 a.m. and often running through the dinner hour.
It was not uncommon to arrive at the studio, sometime after my school had let out in the late afternoon, 4:30 p.m. or so, and while I warmed up, she would pull out her compact, and carefully apply lipstick -- always something cheery. For years I was too young to take much away from this ritual, but at some point, I wondered why she was putting lipstick on for me, for a violin lesson, for fuck's sake.
Silly me.
At some point, I'm not sure whether the wondering got the best of me, or she volunteered the information, but in a late-afternoon practice room, as she focused on her mirror, she said, "If you're ever tired, just put on a little lipstick. Wakes you right up."
All this time, she was fucking exhausted, drinking coffee out of her thermos, escorting me and countless others through pouty twinkle-twinkle to stress-laden competitions and auditions and tapings, always with a freshly made pair of lips.
She taught me so much, this teacher. She saw me weekly, for fourteen years. She was in charge of selecting my music, and while my friends were put through the usual paces of Bloch and Bruch and Mendelssohn by their instructors, she sensed something else in me, and put in front of me raw and passionate, wildly-fun and painfully-aching Wieniawski and Lalo. I realized only in retrospect that she, of all people, gleaned a personality that I was only coming to understand myself. And yet I remember so clearly, things like this hot Arizona afternoon, wandering through my scales, while she dabbed her LateAfternoonDoldrums Red freshly made mouth on a dainty handkerchief.
:::
My neighborhood springtime lipstick application and memories of Mrs. M coincided nicely with Julia's timely piece at GITW on how we take care of ourselves -- our outward selves and appearances. I didn't cut my hair in '07, in large part because I didn't want to go back to the stylist who did my hair at 39w and have to explain the whole fucking thing; and in part because I simply didn't care. My eyebrows grew shabby. My skin, already fucked over by progesterone supplements and pregnancy, exploded in a torrent of stress and hormones. It didn't help that I rarely bothered to wash it. I brushed my teeth if I had the energy, I gave up flossing. The makeup I had bought expressly for my brother's wedding, a month before Maddy was conceived, lay in the drawer collecting dust. I didn't want to buy new clothes for my new, large, ungainly, memory-laden and depressing body, so I wore sweats and big t-shirts well into summer. I looked the part, there was no mistaking that something about me was completely, totally wrong. Could be grief; could be flu.
My first foray out into groups and crowds was a local fundraiser held at a neighbor's house, in May? June? Well, it seemed awfully soon to me, whenever it was. I pulled a comb through my unkempt hair, poured my body into a cheap sundress, decided no amount of makeup could possibly do justice to my skin. But heeding some advice from the crevices of my memory, I pulled out an ancient tube of lipstick and carefully applied it.
Not for anyone else, mind you. Not to look better, certainly -- my mouth was in no way going to detract from my baggy eyes or my sorry midsection.
Just a quick coating of Wake the fuck up Pink to get me out the door.
:::
Bella returned home from a party last week, and nestled in her goodie bag was a plastic container of lipgloss on a string. While I can still (!) pull the ol' bluff of "Hey, you don't like gum so I'm throwing it out, ok?" (much like I make a face and explain, "Eew, this drink has BUBBLES in it. You don't like bubbles. I'll find you some water." These scams aren't long for the making, are they), there was no getting rid of the MAKEUP. She seriously ground her finger into the pink goo, and mashed it on her lips, so she more resembled The Joker than any angelic child model made up beyond their years. It was depressing (she's FOUR!) and simultaneously fucking hilarious.
"How do I look?" Bella asked, with a mature downward glance that screamed for a Louis Vitton briefcase, and possibly a fan to blow some wind through the wisps of hair around her face.
"Beautiful."
Sometimes it's not about how it alters the outside, but how it makes you feel on the inside.
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