is it was

Frances requested a CD of music to listen to when she feels angry for Christmas, so Mike assembled some punk, angry songs for her. In the process he also discovered her bedtime CD from when she was a baby. So that one got included in the little sleeve as well, full of sweet tunes he had hand selected when she was three or four months old. 

Last night, on her way upstairs, Frances said she thought she'd listen to the old songs to fall asleep by, instead of Bach. I offhandedly replied that I'd probably cry my eyes out upon first listen. She looked a little startled. Oh, it's okay, I reassured her. You can still play it.

So she did, and I was transported to her pale green bedroom in Lancaster. Mike and I would read Goodnight Moon to her together, then he would say goodnight, stand up, turn off the light, find the remote on the shelf and point it at the CD player that sat inside her odd little closet across the room, turning on the music as he quietly shut the door behind him. That was the cue that it was time to nurse, nestled in the glider, to the chimes of that first song. We would linger over Innocence Mission and Sufjan Stevens, and I would always gently settle her in the crib and leave before the last song, which was, I do believe, called This Song, by Badly Drawn Boy. If I heard it begin, I knew we were off script.

Back in the nine year old chaos and swirl of Frances's present day bedroom, the chimes began, and without a thought I sat on the edge of her bed and cried. I hope I didn't freak her out too much (I did warn her, after all) but the truth is that girl soaks up any nostalgia having to do with her babyhood like a bone dry sponge. We hugged. She cried a little too. She needs reminders that she was the one and only baby once, and that my heart sometimes sings yearningly for our simpler days as a family of three...when Mike and I conjured up and perpetuated a carefully orchestrated, twenty-step, airtight bedtime routine, night after night! Can you imagine? 

We visited Mike's parents after Christmas, who have recently moved into a new home. During the visit we discovered that they live less than five minutes away from a beautiful state park. We were a bit unprepared when we arrived, but I had spent too much time inside and was driven a little mad by the warm weather and sunshine, so couldn't resist advocating for an unknown hike. It was uncomfortably close to sundown, and Mike had to sling the stroller, and I had to sling the toddler (without a sling!), but I didn't care. Trees, air, Andrew Wyeth's watery yellow light everywhere I looked! Let's do it!!

Beatrice did walk for some of it. But mostly I carried her. Mike thought we might double back at a certain point and I said no way! We can make it, and it's such a beautiful day. (It really was.) After awhile, I could feel nervousness quietly emanating from his body, competing with the sunshine's effects, but I persisted in my cheerful, plunge-ahead attitude, while secretly scanning for blue blazes to reassure me we were on the right trail and exhaling every time I saw one. Occasionally the trail split, or became so littered with leaves it was unclear if we were still on it, and I hoisted Beatrice higher, wondering every so often, as the sun sank, if I was being absolutely crazy and leading my family into a cold, dark disaster.

Along the path we'd seen a number of fresh hoofprints and Beatrice was getting increasingly excited about the presence of horses. I kept telling her we'd see some to help maintain the momentum, though I was uncertain about that. Then, midway up a rather steep hill in which the trail began to fade into the forest floor, I looked up at the ridge to see two excellent horses poised at the top. 

Horses! Look, horses! (On the trail! I thought - they must be on the trail, so we are too!)

We all walked quickly uphill to catch up with them, though their indifferent riders turned without acknowledging us and walked in the other direction. Rather unfriendly. Beatrice could not stop talking about them: there are horses! People are riding on their backs! We see horses! The horses are there! 

Soon, after they'd left our view, her assertions became questions: there are horses? There are people on horses? We see horses? We see them?

Until finally, as we continued along in their wake, Beatrice - in reference to the magical, elusive horses - said: is it was?

Woah. Is it was. She meant, I think: did it really happen? Was the past real? Can you please confirm for me that something important happened, which is not exactly happening now, but in a sense is, because the memory of it is filling my mind and heart?

This holiday season has been very sweet, very full - of open, sprawling time playing with toys and games, of meaningful family visits, of Beatrice chattering away. I won't remember what her voice sounds like now in a year's time. I can barely replicate her cadences for you here. We are all of us growing and becoming in every which way, but the children most especially so, and so remarkably fast at that. What a blessing to have slower days and lazy afternoons, complete with boredom and bickering, to look around and notice, to feel all the feelings. To remember Frances in my arms like it was yesterday, to feel hot tears in my eyes before my thoughts have caught up. 

Is it was? Yes, it was, Beatrice! And I might add, which I suspect has a slightly different meaning, was it is. Also, was it will be, and will be it is. These past days have been punctured with flashes of joy that are so brilliant, so painful - that is the potential that slowness holds. Watching my family hike up the hillside against the low sunlight filtering through stands of trees, draped in my responsibility and delight, I knew the truth of is it was, and will be. A world without end.

And our hike? I gave in and panicked about 100 yards from the trail's end. Mike joined me. Not our best moment. Then a few feet later we heard voices on the park's main path and realized we had finished the hike. A Christmas miracle! I couldn't have been happier, or prouder of my uncomplaining big kids, or more relieved not to have put in motion the harrowing true story behind Hollywood's next wilderness disaster.

Happy, happy new year to all of you. Thank you for walking these trails with me! I send wishes for love, peace, healing and joy in 2015.

rainy day snowstorm

We've had a lot of dreary weather of late. Saturday was yet another very cold and damp day, and in between errands and chores the children conspired to plaster our kitchen windows with countless paper snowflakes. I absolutely love it. Part of what I love - and am, frankly, a bit unsettled by - is that they did it nearly all by themselves. They are so very capable.

A couple of days beforehand, I showed them this apparently foolproof technique for creating gorgeous paper snowflakes. We folded and cut one batch together. I said something vague about glitter enhancements before being distracted by our little Mama-barnacle Beatrice (pick me up Mama, pick me up!) and when I came back to the kitchen table Frances and Gabriel were working on a pile. Each time they unfolded and discovered a new one I'd hear them ooo and ahh, and occasionally run to find me and show me the latest. Look at this one, Gabriel would exclaim, can you believe it?! Come see Didi's, it's so amazing!

Their enthusiasm was infectious and when I said they could cover the windows they were delighted.

On Sunday the sun came out. I tried to kick them outside but instead they invited our neighbor over to "make stuff" with them. She came running and the three of them cut and sewed and glued while I made guacamole and beans, sometimes looking up to admire the snowflake shadows slanting across the pink kitchen walls. 

Frances is nine years old. She has become a new kind of child: more sophisticated, independent, funnier, steadier, kinder, and much less inclined to contradiction and defiance, especially around me. She is interested in peers, coolness, identity. I think it's all been marvelous for our relationship. She's also pointed out to me, quite reasonably (though this is not always communicated in a reasonable tone), that she has reached the age of consent when it comes to blogging. Even if I ask permission, I find writing about her is dangerous territory (see above concerns). So I have tried to avoid it, and tend to focus more on the person in the family who is not yet able to protest. But if I could, I would write and ponder more about Frances, my first born, my dear one, my complicated, mysterious, beautiful, sharp-minded girl.

So let's say these are more pictures of snowflakes. Not blogging about Frances right now. Nope. Just the snowflakes.

And for good measure, a picture of some actual snow. Inclusion in photo of abovementioned girl is purely coincidental.

thankslisting

Gabriel spent the week prior to Thanksgiving at home, sick with a persistent fever and remarkable congestion that lasted long enough that my worrying wore me down and I took him to the pediatrician, who told me that he had a virus. I guess I knew that. He needed rest and fluids. Yes. Right. Just as he was finally behaving - and eating - like himself again, Beatrice succumbed. 

She developed a fever on Thanksgiving, and the congestion was so awful that she had a hard time breathing. All she wanted to do was nurse, and it was impossible, which was terribly frustrating. The fever worsened, and the two of us were up most of the night. My poor sweaty, snotty little girl. Every time I resettled her in the portable crib at the foot of our bed, I would lie there, staring at the ceiling, listening to her awful breathing noises and coughs, torn between exhaustion and wanting to pick her right back up again.

That little conflict never lasted long because within minutes she'd begin crying again, asking for me. And really, who wouldn't? If I felt like she sounded and my mother was a few feet away, I would call for her too.

Luckily my mom was, in fact, a few feet away! The next day as I talked with Mike about leaving a day early because Beatrice was so sick, it suddenly occurred to me that that was utter insanity. My mama was here, making us popcorn while we watched movies and offering to bring me tea. She was taking my big kids out to lunch and sharing her big fluffy dog with them. When my kids are sick and want me all the time, I often dream of my mom's caring presence. Caregivers are in serious need caregiving.

So in the scheme of things, the timing couldn't have been better. No work/child care scrambling, no neglecting the other children, just enforced down time with a hot little monkey who wrapped her sticky hands around my neck and could not bear to be parted from me. 

Usually visits to Lancaster are full of visiting friends, trips to Central Market, knocking on neighbor's doors, and stops in my favorite shops, cafes, and galleries. I'm so happy to be there; I want to soak it all in. Oh yes, I tend to overdo. So to spend three days on my mother's couch, pinned beneath my flushed-face little one, watching the snow fall, snuggling with my family, talking with my aunt - it was different. 

All that sitting and holding and sleep deprivation inspired a meditative mood. I kept noticing. (One of the perks of the stillness and singletasking children sometimes demand, especially as newborns). I kept noticing little things - everyday things - and sometimes, as I noticed, I felt awe before them. Wonder. Maybe, even, gratitude. Here are a few of the things that beckoned to me during the long weekend:

-the vertiginous sight, up through the bay window, of heavy white snowflakes falling through the gray sky

-miniature marvel: a perfect, smooth, shiny acorn

-my husband's clear eyes (true windows if ever there were a pair)

-the sunburst pattern of melted snow on the windshield, water beading out in every direction as we drove home, and the pleasure of anticipating Gabriel describing it to me, knowing he would also notice (and he did, within moments)

-the fast-paced drama of the East coast late autumn sky

-listening to the Beattles, those prolific wonders who supply my children with seemingly endless favorite songs, watching all three of their faces

-wily, wonderful, irrepressible squirrels

-Frances playing the piano with pride and pleasure

-a photograph in a large frame tucked behind my mother's armoire, discovered on one of my lingering visits to her sanctuary of a bedroom: a portrait of my great-grandmother Viola. In her face I saw my mother, my aunt, my sister. Maybe even myself. It was arresting. 

-my children's growing bodies, ever longer and leaner

-my mother's profile

and finally, 

-creamy pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crust. 

I hope you also had a beautiful Thanksgiving. 

xoxo

john cerutti and all the saints

As we headed out on our walk to school yesterday morning, Gabriel looked over at me across the stroller handles with November in his eyes. He sighed heavily. "First Peepiceek, then the Car Talk guy, and now John Cerutti, too."

What do Frances's mouse, Tom Magliozzi, and a former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher all have in common? You guessed it. They're dead. We cared about them, and they died.

Last week Frances and I found her mouse curled up motionless in the bedding of his cage. She wept, then didn't believe it, then wept, then repeated over and over: I want him back. Bring him back. It was agonizing. My heart broke for her. Her remaining mouse, Reepicheep, has become the object of much worried attention.

When I heard about the Car Talk guy's death, I thought immediately of Gabriel. I've always had a bit of a love hate relationship with that show and assumed others did, too - but Gabriel surprised me not long ago by confessing that he just plain loved it. I turned it off a couple of weeks ago and he protested. This is a great one! I want to hear what they say about her car!

...You do?

He did. He loved how they laughed. He loved that they were brothers. On our walk we talked about how he seemed like such a happy person, and that made it somehow less sad that he had died.

John Cerutti is oddly the loss I feel most deeply. We've been using his baseball card as a bookmark for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and we used it for that endless tome of an interminable story Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix too. That's a long time to hang with John Cerutti's eyes squinting in the sun, his day-old beard, his good natured, relaxed expression. Over the weeks we began to wonder about him. The card is from 1988. It states he went to Amherst and enjoys oil painting, music, and drawing. Often we would address him directly, a retired ball player, out there somewhere: John Cerutti, who are you? Where are you? Are you puttering in the garden? Painting a landscape? Are you happy, are you well?

Finally Mike Googled the man. He died ten years ago, at the age of 44. That's how old my dad was when he died. Cerutti had a heart condition. The Wikipedia article on him ends thus:
John Cerutti was known and admired for his exemplary character, good will, and sportsmanship.

When Mike and Gabriel told me what they'd learned the other night, I surprised myself and nearly cried. How can he be dead? How can he have been dead all this time? But he was so young!

What is it about just now? Proximity to All Saints Day? The sudden change in weather and shortened days, shifting from golden, warm October to wet, dark November? I feel an openness to grief, a susceptibility to sadness. We all do, in our own ways.

Tonight I read In The Night Kitchen to Beatrice before bed. It was the first time she'd seen the book. I find it to be magical, not only gorgeous (an aside: I have long dreamed of a poster designed from the illustrations to adorn our walls. Ever seen one?) but true in ways I still do not fully understand though I have probably read it hundreds of times.

Beatrice also seemed entranced. We read it once, then twice (with Frances and Gabriel, who also cannot resist). Beatrice was getting tired but insisted on reading it AH-DEN, so I perhaps stupidly turned to the beginning just once more. But as I began to read I noticed Beatrice's lower lip was trembling. She began to cry, sorrowfully and fearfully. Mickey is tired, she said. He will sleep. More tears.

Am I reading too much into it when I say that she felt her first intimations of mortality tonight? She kept crying, kept insisting on finishing the story. She became focused on his bed, his leaving his Mama and Papa sleeping tight (Mama! Papa!) and finally I had to close the book and say it was bedtime. She kept crying and talking about Mickey. While she nursed she pulled off repeatedly, that sad tremble still in her voice, saying Mickey ...okay. He is okay. Mickey is okay. She couldn't stop thinking about him.

He's not leaving his parents forever, he's not alone, he's not scared, he's not going to die. Right?

After I shut the door she wailed so miserably I had to get her out of the crib and bring her downstairs, where she ate Girl Scout cookies with her brother and sister, snuggled in my lap, and eventually calmed down.

What a few days it's been. What sadness there is in the world! Those unsettling, mustachioed bakers say "we bake cake, and nothing's the matter!" These are the same bakers who put Semitic, chubby, capable little Mickey into an oven. Something is the matter, alright, you nasty bakers. Something is very wrong.

Surely by now Mickey has died. So have his parents. Maurice Sendak has died. My dad, my grandparents, Mike's grandparents, Pete Seeger, Tom Magliozzi, John Cerutti, Frances's first pet. Name yours too. All the saints. It makes the grief even more excruciating sometimes to share it with one's children, but in that sharing it can take on a beautiful, holy quality. Blessed are those who mourn.