book of happiness

Yesterday afternoon Gabriel was out of sorts. In the car, I asked if he was sad about something.

I'm not sad, I'm angry, he replied.

What are you angry about?

He caught my eye in the rear view mirror, to be sure I was listening. Then he said, I'm not angry about anything. I'm just angry.

Ever the social worker, I empathized, telling him that sometimes I feel angry too. I said that there are things I like to do to feel better when I'm in a bad mood, like have some quiet time or listen to music.

I don't like to do those kind of things to feel better. 

At this point you may be wondering why I persisted in the conversation, but I can be slow that way. I kept on firing away, asking what kind of things do you like to do?

Snowboarding.

Oh?

Flying in a real, superfast airplane.

What else?

Riding in a motorcycle. Hang gliding. Being a knight.

growing into reading

I can't resist sharing one more Marie Howe poem with you. After I heard her interviewed on Fresh Air and wrote about it here, I requested one of her collections, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, through our library system. It is very fine. Here is a poem that got me thinking about how children become readers, and the unique developmental processes involved that engage the whole child.

Why the Novel Is Necessary but Sometimes Hard to Read
It happens in time. Years passed until the old woman,
one snowy morning, realized she had never loved her daughter...

Or, Five years later she answered the door, and her suitor had returned
almost unrecognizable from his journey.

But before you get to that part you have to learn the names
you have to suffer not knowing anything about anyone

and slowly come to understand who each of them is, or who each of them
imagines him or herself to be --

and then, because you are the reader, you must try to understand who
you think each of them is because of who you believe yourself to be

in relation to their situation

or to your memory of one very much like it.

on washing the windows outside, looking in

Mike and I took stock in the car this morning on to way to and from church, in between unrelated observations from the backseat. Family life: it's challenging. It's easy to feel overwhelmed. He has so much work. I take on too much, and, as longtime readers may already know, want a lot of incompatible things.

It was sobering, as confronting the limits of time, money, and good humor only can be. A new pair of fancy shoes, a new job, a private school and a new baby simple do not line up, not in this universe nor any other, no matter the contortionist fantasies I concoct in quieter moments (an unknown rich relative will die, leaving us a small fortune; a high powered literary agent will stumble upon Homemade Time and beg me to sign a book deal, leaving me free to write, start a community-oriented bilingual nonprofit, and have one, or six, more babies; an unknown well-resourced nonprofit down the street will come knocking, offering me a lucrative part-time social work job; etc.)

But dearie me, I am a grown up now and should know better! This life has its limits, and in truth that's a good thing. All the better to appreciate and be creative within the context we are given, which in my case is a wealth of blessings. The whole sober gray cloud lifted and scudded away before too long. Here is what happened:

two hundred letters later

A little over two years ago I wrote my first post, encouraged by my friend Amelia who had the foresight to sign me into Blogger, send me my password, and say go ahead, do it! I was wholly ignorant of the blog form at the time, but hoped to create a common space where my dear, far-flung friends - and maybe even their dear, far-flung friends - might find sustenance, support, humor and inspiration for the day of diaper-changing, story-telling, nose-wiping and song-singing ahead. I wanted everyone to write and read this blog together. Might as well come out and say it: I wanted a community.

The jury is still out for me on whether or not an online community can rightfully be called a community (one that satisfies, one that deepens human connection), and I quickly discovered that my friends didn't have the time or inclination to write for a blog that I imposed upon them, but I persisted nonetheless. I wrote each post as a letter to a very close friend, not the sort that are about reporting on major events, but rather letters that increased intimacy by sharing intimate details: alienation on the playground, creative energy at the kitchen table, tenderness at bedtime. Homemade Time has been a place to explore the themes that come up (and tend to stay up) in a mostly stay-at-home life: the conflicting allures of children and work, persistent feminist quandaries, finding a balance of independence and interdependence. 

This is my two hundredth letter.