spring headstands

Nothing quite inspires like hanging around the house without a thing to do. Where would we be now if we hadn't logged all that time staring at ceiling fans as children? I'm convinced that creativity depends upon wide-open expanses of boredom in which it can incubate, eventually giving rise to particular expression. That's one angle, anyway. It's an argument that supports my intuitive belief in unscheduled time for children, and my persistent exasperation with the fact that Frances arrives home from kindergarten at 4 pm with homework in her backpack.

Though truthfully, no one was feeling bored this weekend. How could we, with grandparents visiting to celebrate Gabriel's birthday and so many excellent new toys to play with?

Because of the guests and the toys, we were able to enjoy the kind of time that stretches out wide before you, loose and breezy. Relatively contented children and many adoring adults made for walks, meandering chats, reading, drawing. Filling a glass bowl with purple and white violets, planting a few seeds. On Sunday, in the height of lazy afternoon-ness, I was struck by the urge to practice headstands so I could watch the kids swinging upside down.

As adults, we so rarely find ourselves in touch with that urge from childhood, to try something because it might be kind of neat. The inspiration to master a new trick, be it throwing a ball as high as you can, performing a tongue twister with incredible speed, or holding a perfect handstand in the pool longer than anyone else. Remember? Maybe it's not that the inclination fades with age; it's that the circumstance necessary for practicing tricks so rarely presents itself in adulthood. What we need is an afternoon with nothing to do.

We were supposed to go to the Air & Space Museum on Sunday. It was to be one last birthday hurrah for our resident lover of Things That Fly. Then the government almost shut down, and I prepared myself for the likelihood of shuttered museums. Then it miraculously didn't shut down, but by then I had gone too far down a different path and couldn't turn back.

It's my new anti on-the-go campaign. What shall the slogan be? Say No to Go? Don't Go? When you're on the go, you can't make papier mache, which is what I proposed in lieu of rocket ships to my children and mother, in the hopes of somehow sweetening the stay-at-home deal for them. They were skeptical, but the fact that no one made a case for the Air & Space Museum makes me think they weren't too disappointed to spend the day at home instead.

The first thing we did was shred the newspaper. That went over pretty well.

Frances helped whisk up some flour and water into a smooth goo. We used slightly more water than flour, playing with amounts until the consistency was just a little thicker than Gabriel's birthday cake batter.

 

Somehow we managed to collect all the newspaper in a grocery bag and bring it outside, along with two bowls of goo, three ceramic cereal bowls to serve as molds, vaseline to grease them with, and an empty cardboard toy box to serve as a workspace. (Did I mention my mom was there? This is definitely a project best undertaken when you have a 1:1 adult-kid ratio.)

After slathering the bowls in vaseline, we set to work dipping our newspaper in the sticky cake batter, squeezing off the excess, and laying strips. Everyone commented often on how ridiculously messy this all was. Gabriel finally asked at one point if we were ever going to wash our hands, because his bowl was already so very mah-SHAYED. 

Despite the low level distress that crusty flour goo caused him, he was right back out on the deck with me this morning, helping to put on another layer of sticky newspaper. Until it wasn't fun anymore, a few minutes later. He read his new book about rockets while I finished the job.

The day was gorgeous and sunny, so I left the bowls resting on old jars outside to speed along the drying process.

Tonight I managed to pry one of the bowls free from its mold. I know, it's not much to look at now, especially since the inside is yellowed with vaseline. But that can be fixed, and after we introduce these bowls to paint, glitter, and all the bling we can find in our crafting supplies, then give them the jobs of holding plastic dinosaurs (Gabriel) and drawing charcoal (Frances), I do think they will be quite beautiful. At least, they will be to me.

But do you know, I think I like those headstands as much as - if not more than - the bowls. An afternoon free of errands, during which my inner on-the-go addict was relatively quiet, so much so that instead of folding laundry I spent time on my head, complete with muddy knees and elbows and leaves in my hair? I can't tell you what it might have been exactly, but I like to think that while I was upside down, something shook loose.