Tell Me

Bah! Up! Ber and Be. Mama, Daaahhhhh. Uh huh and yup. There are endless variations on these words and countless others. These "words" are usually augmented with some insane pantomimed hand or head gesture intended to clarify what it is exactly, that the Giant is trying to convey. My boy is in the throes of learning how to speak and it is potentially by turns, the most wonderful, hysterical, ridiculous and frustrating thing we have encountered in our journey together thus far. My son is a little life mimic and he has a mind like a steel trap. Seriously. The child does not forget ANYTHING. He can watch where I put something just once, and from then on, he will go to that place and wreck havoc with his little hands and beautiful diabolical baby mind. So the learning to talk thing has been a riot. He copies sounds, tries to sing in his one toned hum and has full blow conversations with Rufus and I and then, just with himself. It is a sight to behold.

When you have a baby that is growing this quickly, each phase seems to be both amazing and amazingly trying in the same breath. In the beginning he was simply in a very rudimentary way, trying to gain control of his body. I would watch him for hours as he just lifted his arm or tried to touch his hand to his face. His sense of depth perception and crude motor function frustrated him. As the months whizzed by, his development has accelerated at a phenomenal clip. Holding his head up and rolling over, getting up on his hands and knees and rocking his butt back and forth like he's getting ready to ambush us. Pulling up to standing and then with pride and fear, those first tentative steps that tested his independence. Now he is finding his voice. His first voice. I can hear the birdsong sweet cadence trying to find its way out of his mouth and into the bigger world. I can't wait to hear what he is going to have to say. My boy and his words. His mama and her words. We are both a work in progress.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

We've begun planning next year's garden. With the wind keening outside rattling the windows and shaking the bare trees, we are in the throes of imagining planting. We are literally plotting the lush and verdant bounty that will feed us hopefully, not only through the coming summer but also through the winter of next year as well. We have framed out two gardens- one smaller home garden in our backyard and a huge expanse for our family's communal garden out at the farm. 4 tons of black gold tilled into to the ground courtesy of my land loving husband. Two simultaneous composts working their dirty magic awaiting to be folded into the soil with our bare and eager hands. We can almost smell this growing of things, this green and familiar scent.

The last few days have been an exercise in imagination, in thoughtful and deliberate conversation and research. The names alone are enough to spin my brain into a frenzy of delight. The ubiquitous Moon and Stars watermelon is on the list. Plum Purple and French Breakfast Radishes, Hearts of Gold melon and an old heirloom variety of corn called True Gold (oh my!). We are experimenting with German Butterball potatoes and the the blushingly demure Pink Viking varietal as well. Tendergreen Bush beans and more herbs than you could shake a stick at- Chives and Thyme, Hyssop, Spearmint and Borage, Basil and Chervil and Lovage. This list is only partial too with the requests of the extended family needing to be tossed into the mix as well. So it goes. So here we go.

This is going to be a very ambitious project considering the extent of my gardening acumen. I have planted some sort of garden in almost every place I have ever lived. Whether it be a container garden holding one stalwart and noble tomato plant in Los Angeles or a small patch of backyard in a shared community garden in San Francisco, I have always grown something. I always loved not only the idea of growing my own food but also the physical work it required of me in these small endeavors. The zen of gardening. Yes, there is such a thing. The dirt under my fingernails and the sweat on my brow as I bend to weed a too long neglected row. How my shoulders smell like the sun. But THIS, this is another animal all together and we are excited to see how it all unfolds.

With the changing of the light and the press of winter, we have a lovely reprieve upon us- we can take our time a bit in deciding what and how it is we are going to do this thing. The reverie is a beautiful one. A subtle yet enduring reminder that even at the start of winter, it's never too early to start dreaming about spring.

Eating the Dark

Winter is in the wings here. Her chilly breath on my bare neck reminding me to take heed. The trees glow somber in a gossamer gray mist, the few brave leaves left hanging on in futility. Sky a bruised plum, even at 3 o'clock. This coming of winter also means that the darkness creeps in much earlier. Having grown up on the east coast I should be used to this. You know, hearty character building stuff that makes us such a stoic and martyred lot. Having lived in California for 13 years before moving to Kansas though, I sadly realize that am not. I had forgotten how the gears of the seasons downshift- time, the weather, my body and it's clock, all suddenly feel as if they are wading through the hours in slow motion. I am relearning the rhythm of this ancient dance and I am stumbling. But, my feet seem to remember where to tread and I am trusting of this.

Without fail, this happens every year at this time. Even when I was living in Los Angeles and there was no intelligent sense in it. Suddenly, I want LOTS of knee socks and Flashdance-esq legwarmers. I feel this surging and tidal desire to re-learn (meaning really learn) how to knit. I want stacks of books and a howling wind and a big blanket to wrap up in. Then, there is the cooking. Oh the cooking. This is delicate.

In winter, food becomes porn for me. Yes, I said porn. I want to bake and cook insane amounts- bunker house apocalypse style, we have to live in the basement because the end is near kinda crap. More food honestly, than the 2 and a half of us could ever really eat, even on a good day. And not just any food. I want to cook complicated food. Food with recipes 3 pages long that takes 4 days to make. Food that will wile away the small hours between the early coming dark and when I can fall into bed feeling like I accomplished something of merit- even if that something is as ridiculous as making enough homemade sausage to feed a small Bavarian village. But, my husband has threatened to live out in the shed fasting in protest if this mania comes to pass. Just because the bears are going into hibernation and eating their way into a stupor he says, does not mean that we should be doing the same. I agree with him, begrudgingly of course, though the lure of the kitchen is as difficult to resist as a siren's song these nights. Cooking is another vein in creating for me. To make something, even if that something is chocolate chip banana bread or a pot of braised short ribs that slow bubble in the oven all night happily singing and trilling in their red wine bath, is so profoundly satisfying. The visceral raw soul stoking kind of satisfying. Oh yes. It's like that for me.

But because I love my husband, in lieu of homemade lemon cream danish, I will write. It's going to be a long winter.

Is the Grass Greener?

Some days, I feel like I am failing fantastically at being a parent. Today was one of those days. My patience worn to a thin and fragile transparency that left me legless and spineless begging for some kind of mercy- and I am not usually the praying or, begging type. The incessant needing of another human being can be mind shatteringly exhausting. It's like running a marathon with your mind instead of your feet and you don't get to stop because there is no finish line. Ever. Yes, it's been one of those days and in the moment I wonder what it is exactly, that I have gotten myself into with this mommy business.

It goes without saying that a 10 month old has no concept of personal space. He will abusively use you as a jungle gym, ladder and all purpose utility vehicle to get himself wherever it is he thinks he needs to go. Now, this may be up or down, inside or outside, to the moon, to Japan (and this is why it's so maddening and frustrating) but really in the end, he doesn't know. He has no idea. And as his mother, as the navigator of this ship of crazy, it is my job to try and decipher his insane and lunatic baby rambling and babbling, head throwing and leg clinging into some coherent and useful sense that is going to save both my sanity and his little head from spinning around and popping off into his baby pool. Suffice to say I haven't had much luck. They never taught me how to crack code in college. I am now profoundly bitter about this.

I try and explain to my childless and carefree friends that having a baby is like living in a foreign country all the time where you don't speak the language and are perpetually lost with no map and no one to come and rescue you. More often than not Rufus and I are just winging it. That, and the Jameson helps too. There's lots of UN type consulting that goes on back and forth between us with nothing becoming any clearer but at least we both feel vindicated at the effort and not entirely useless. We look at each with that dazed and glassy eyed stare that you see in lots of couples with children. They look shell shocked and battle weary because they are. It is a daily negotiation that takes place- sometimes delicate and sometimes heavy handed but, it's constant. Even when they can't yet speak you are engaged in this bartering. Even when you haven't slept in 3 days and know the child has purposely waited you out simply to get the upper hand in whatever ridiculous drama is playing out, you still pander and pray. When you have a baby, you think the universe is playing tricks on you and laughing at your expense. I told my mother this and she said without a hint of irony, that it was true. The things no one tells you are many and from what I hear, there is a good reason for this. But no one is talking yet and I am too tapped out to care.

Then I see this. The Giant in the grass with his arms raised up above his head, a smile cracking his face open like a watermelon, his fingers trying to catch the wind. His hands working like bird's wings taking flight. And in these small minutes watching him, there is a grace that takes my breath away. And I don't have to ask for the answers anymore, because I realize that I already have them.

A Patchwork Life

I am cutting up pieces of fabric; crazy stripes and massive claret and gold blooming flowers on brocade. Old funky and retired dishtowels too pretty to throw away and some vintage pre-me baby clothes that I could never even PRAY to fit into again. I have taken out the Giant's trove of baby booty and have scissored them to bits. Leaping emerald frogs and mind dizzying plaids, soft nubby cottons that still smell like him and heavy but lush knits. I am working on a quilt. Or I should say, I am intending to work on a quilt. Once I start to dig myself out of this mountain of fabric and can try and put some order to the chaos covering my dinning room table, then I will be piecing a quilt, and starting the long and arduous process of creating something with my own two hands. This is the first project of this type that I am endeavoring by myself and I am slightly overwhelmed but mostly, I am incredibly inspired. Quaint, isn't it?

My compulsive creative need to make things out of stuff laying around the house is an old one with deep roots. I can remember trying to sew some hab jab nonsense out of old pillow cases on my mother's sewing machine with absolutely no idea of what I was doing. But something in that small spark of willingness, of wanting to make something with my own hands, stayed with me. This blitz of electric energy that streaked its way into me has culminated in collages and paintings, rebound books and my sad yet valiant attempt at knitting- which culminated in one thing, a rusty orange scarf that I still wear. All this ripped paper and yarn, glue and paint has all been about one thing, some latent desire to re-purpose the clutter of my life and make it into something useful and beautiful.

I have thought about becoming more self sufficient as the years have spun by and this here quilt, this insanity threatening to devour my son with its sheer volume, this fabric avalanche, is my first true effort at trying to use what we already have to make something we need. It seems so provincial to attempt and fall off the grid, to grow a garden and sew your own clothes. I can just hear one particular friend of mine saying it's all so Laura Ingels of me, so pioneer woman, so old fashioned. But I would disagree. I would hazard a guess that most of us are more adept at working on a computer than we are at digging in the dirt. And by dirt, I mean the brown stuff outside that has worms and bugs in it. Most of you will think I'm crazy for even saying that, of COURSE you know what dirt is, god. But really, when was the last time you stuck your hands in it? When was the last time you took a deep and gorgeous breath of how rich and full it is? Most folks don't know how to stitch a hole in their sock. Truly. Why bother when you can just go out and buy new socks? Because. It's important. In this age of mass over consumption and the hoarding of useless and extraneous crap it means something. It is markedly important to me to be able to take care of my family this way. I'm tired of throwing stuff away and just buying new stuff to replace the stuff that I really probably didn't even need or want, in the first damn place. Whew. I'm stepping off the soapbox now, I promise. But, I think now, we understand each other a little better.

This is not intended to be a lecture. It is not intended to make me cooler or more progressive than you. It is not a ploy at covert hip-ness or for that matter, hippieness. I am not advocating that you quit your job and run off to live in the woods, eating tree bark and hunting squirrels. I am simply saying, think about it. This is the reason we moved to Kansas to begin with, to try and re-arrange our lives a little. So I am making a quilt. A quilt that will keep my boys warm this winter when the wind is raging outside and the snow is falling casting a hush through the air. I am making this quilt because it is important.

The Evolution

He eats dirt. And sticks. He slides across the floor on his belly and licks the hardwood like a catfish, hoping to get that dried piece of cracker or that bit of strawberry from 3 days ago. He tries to stick his fingers into electrical sockets and chews on wires. He climbs things he shouldn't, like bookcases and record players. He rips up grass and beheads flowers like it's his sole reason for being. He fights sleep like a pro-wrestler on too much ephedrine and then crashes so hard you'd think he'd been up partying for days on end, putting his father and I to shame with his stamina. He howls and cackles, head thrown back with no self consciousness, flashing his little glowing moon white milk teeth. He is opinionated and loud and lets you know rather dramatically, when he is VERY displeased with something you have or have not done. He loves fruit but needs to beat it to death first making sure to rub a fair bit of it into his hair and ears before he tastes it. He would rather be naked, all the time, than bear the indignity of clothes or heaven forbid, his diaper. He laughs easily and often and strings together silly little sing-songy gibberish that make it difficult for me not to just eat his face. This is the Angry Giant. This is the sweet little starfish, all arms and legs akimbo, kicking me in the ribs, that I carried for nine months and he is almost a year old.

As I was laying in bed with him last night, me bone tired and heavy eyed, him, slaphappy, delirious and giddy with exhaustion, I started remembering things. Watching him grow from this brand new helpless and tiny newborn into this little baby/almost boy has been one of the most surreal and intense experiences I have ever born witness to. He is becoming. Every day in leaps and bounds beyond measure, he is becoming, incrementally, himself. I have watched him in his quiet play trying to figure things out- how a latch works or how to open the top of the trash can so he can make our kitchen look like the floor of a frat house. How he is fascinated by water, especially running water, and will rush head long with no fear into the coldest puddle or pool hysterical with glee. He is me yet he is so other. And in that, lies the most fascinating evolution. His evolution, and mine too.

I am trying to hold on to these small miraculous moments that seem to just slip through the cracks of my life like rain. I want to remember his snuffly sleepy grumbles that make him sound like a discontented pirate. I want to wrap him up in me and keep him small and safe and always close. But, keeping him static and still and little is not my job. He is leading and I am merely here to follow. His small curious forays into the world, watching eyes saucer wide with wonder at the amazingness of all of it. And he reminds me everyday that there is just as much beauty in laying belly deep in the tall summer grass as there is on any museum wall. He has taught me patience and easy delight and how to be quiet and strong, so he can be loud and free.

An Ode.

I am swallowing small stones. Little jagged things with dagger points that trace a line of white heat down my throat as I breath. I am rolling little marbles of sadness in the palms of my hands while listlessly listening to the rain batter the roof of this house. Thunder cracking and lightning vaulting across the bruise colored sky in some wild race with itself. Tonight, I am missing my husband. So I write. I put fingers to keys in an effort to stem the melancholy washing over me and to keep my mind moving. Moving away from the small swallowing stones and flighty restless fingers playing with my hair too much; to keep my eyes from really absorbing his empty shape missing from this house we share.

He is traveling for work and it is a necessary yet excruciating trip, having him so far away and for so long. I have not yet begun to count the days for it seems too facile a trick on my weary and tender heart. The cliche of heartache is a funny one. A tired one. A worn and overused one. We are usually so eager to ascribe these silly and seemingly childish flights of love fancy to those of us who don't know any better, to those of us wearing the dreaded rose colored glasses. Jaded. We have all become painfully jaded but my heart doesn't care about this. My heart knows better. My heart has seen the real deal and won't go back to that imitation stuff. My heart is smarter than I give it credit for most of the time. I find the rosy glasses fit just fine these days. I am old enough to even afford a really fantastic pair.

I miss my husband. And in this missing of him, I am remembering so much about why he is worth being missed. And it's not because he's gorgeous (because he is) or not because he's sweet and wonderful and all that other crap couples usually say about one another when they want to say nice things. It's for other reasons. For the hundreds of little tiny reasons everyday, that make me love him all over again.

I am difficult. I am temperamental and prone to moodiness. Rufus likes to say that I am a strong woman. He says this with no hint of irony or smarmyness. He is proud of this and exhausted by it in the same turn. And he would also probably tell you that I am more stubborn than is possible to imagine. On both counts, he is right. I am strong in all the ways that word denotes. I can and have lived alone, happily. I have traveled and explored and followed my curiosity into some dicy situations. I have camped and hiked with nothing but a backpack and my own will and whimsy to carry me through for days on end. So yes I guess that makes me strong. But I am also soft as well. And I bruise easily though I am loath to admit that. That's where the stubborn comes out to play and my stubborn is often a menace. A mean and surly pouty lipped girl with a bad attitude- the one your mama warned you about. My set mouth and immovable stone face when I am not willing or, too proudly able, to budge on something. He loves this about me, regardless of how much of a pain in the ass it makes me. I call him the saint. The patient and penitent one. He laughs at this, ribbons of song unfurling from his beautiful mouth.

He is my counterpoint. My equal weight of commonsense and good judgement when I am losing my pretty little head. Both introverted and quietly reflective he is a man of few thoughtless words and unlike his wife, chooses to think before he speaks. There is praise here. For that, is a gift and one that I honor so much in him. I suppose all of this reflection just distills itself into this, I am grateful. Grateful that my partner in this marriage and in the general mischief making of life, the father of my son and my confidant and closest friend, is someone worth all this missing and longing I'm throwing around so recklessly.

So yes, I miss my husband tonight. I will roll into my side of the bed and bury my face in his pillow. I will inhale deeply, his smell of fresh cut wood and clean sweat. And I will fall into sleep and my warm bath of dreams holding on to the shape he makes, the one closest to my heart.