parenting
Writing in the web
I love EB White’s Charlotte’s Web. No matter how many times I read it – from my own childhood sitting on the back seat of a vinyl station wagon seat while the backs of my knees stuck to the bench, in parenthood sharing it with my own little ones, and as an educator -hoping to see the tale ignite a love of reading in young eyes – I still fall in love with it each and every time. Not because I like spiders or the feeling of walking into a web face first doesn’t give me that creepy feeling that I can’t shake off- but I love the story- the characters – talking animals in a barnyard- the ability to look deeper as a life schema.
I think I loved Charlotte’s Web enough that when I read it to my own children years ago the pages seemed to turn themselves in almost a one session sit down memorable read – met by shiny bright smiling eyes and crooked toothy grins atop hand held leaning chins when I imitated the voices I’d imagined for Templeton, Charlotte, and Wilbur. For me, it’s seeing what isn’t easy to notice and finding the value in it – recognizing the extraordinary in the ho hum – finding wonder in the most dire situation.
That’s how I felt when I came across a dewy morning lit web hosting a rather inconspicuous arachnid on the back deck – had I not carefully considered what was delicately placed before me stretched between the shady edge of the house and the splintered railing, I’d have missed the intricacy of the lacework web and just been a sticky mess with a spider crawling over me in an ‘unpin-pointable’ location. I appreciate the reminder my Charlotte gave me – it’s like she was saying stop and notice – there’s always more than is easily seen at first glance.
How to when you don’t know
There’s this thing I think when I ambitiously plan what is beyond my capabilities that I keep reminding myself – but for some reason it doesn’t come to the forefront after its been left on the back burner in some corner of my mind often enough. I’ve attempted in the past to teach what I do not know myself. What is it that makes me think that I can do that? Is it drive or complete and utter ignorance of what should be the fine line for my limitations looming on the other side?
It’s late and I’m embarrassed to admit it but I finished my first of my beach reading books just now all in the first day of the trip. 298 pages of reread captivating lines mingled with phrases and paragraphs I dubbed unimportant proceeding to skim through – I’d finished it; stolen reading opportunities in between a morning at the pool, vegging at the kitchen table in a sticky bathing suit in the afternoon, cooking dinner, vocabulary lessons with the kids, and a mosquito bitten after dinner evening walk for ice cream cones until book one is now finished. My beach books- well loved paperbacks neatly packed with fresh square covers that vacation molts into thrift store pass-on books after being tossed in the sand, glossed with sunblock remnants, rippled bottom pages from leaning against my damp bathing suit in between swigs of bitter iced tea- dripping yet more liquid – in the form of condensation – onto the paused pages when I gaze across the pool at my kids – surprised that despite all of the chatter I can pick out the distant sound of my son clearing his throat from the chlorinated water as being ‘mine’ before springing forward with his friends – engaged in a game.
My reading today: The Wednesday Sisters – about five friends who meandered through life’s situations initially through a writing group that grew to be lifelong friendships reminded me that the scariest things just need to start somewhere and can be done. It’s set in the 60’s and I marvel at the author’s ability to make the time believable to me. Like teaching what I don’t know, I also am blocked in writing; how can I write what I haven’t experienced?
This week on vacation it loops around to another year and I can’t help but think about where we were the previous year- not the place but where were we? What were the kids doing; what were the dreams we had as being something that once achieved we could hope for no better; what did I fear or anticipate in the coming year? How many years ago did I start writing a book I thought I’d finish quickly to let it languish- untouched in the memory bank of a dusty laptop. How could I write what I haven’t lived?
Last year we let our children peddle their bikes to the grocery store for the first time – giving them cash and a verbal list – eagerly anticipating their safe return. This year, they head out on destinationless journeys on bicycles -told only to stay together and come back soon. There was a year that they didn’t leave the security of a firm grasp and we didn’t know how to let go that first year they seemed ready – but we did. This year I’m afraid of the impending high school entry for my daughter; scared of how quickly she will change over four short years’ time and how she’ll find her way or more so how I will find mine in parenting her through it.
I think about writing at the beach because it’s one time I have no access to a paintbrush or a piece of old furniture but am left in my own thoughts with still the same amount of pent up
creative energy. I think about teaching what I’m not, nor ever may be, an expert in, and parenting a girl who’s reached an age only I’m not ready for. I wonder about someday trying to finish a book about a place I’ve never been like the girls in The Wednesday Sisters and publishing it someday. Even though I push the thoughts away in thinking anything is possible since it usually gets me into trouble – I know stranger things have happened. You just find the way. Tomorrow it’s a three mile bike ride to yoga on the beach at sunrise. Goodnight.
The struggling tulip
The first thing I noticed when she was born were her hands. Nine days overdue, I was sure it had taken that much time for her nails to grow and form into perfectly manicured tiny points. Her hands wriggled in the operating room’s cold air and at that moment I realized that she was undeniably mine. Such is the case for her peer counterparts; their mothers each must have memories of an innocent image captured in their mind’s eye. Those fleeting seconds of beauty during the most naive time of her life is what undoubtedly will carry me through the challenges of teenagehood.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen- pink, wrinkly, and soft – the only name fitting for her translates to tulip – my favorite of all garden flowers. Over the years, she has proven that she lives up to that name. It is the first stubborn flower of springtime, raising its head early on – when the cold weather has barely subsided as if in challenge. With scarce vegetation around in early spring, the tulip is a prime delicacy to its aggressive predator – the deer to savor its tasty leaves and flecked petals until the root is all that is left. Centuries ago, the value of the tulip was unmatched – both in nature and in artwork. It was, and is sought after, and has been worth its weight in gold. The tulip has satiated insatiable hunger among the poor – forced to eat the bulbs for lack of food. My daughter possesses the stubbornness, she falls weak to others, and to me – her worth cannot be matched nor value compensated; she has satisfied hunger from the heart and returned the love we have given her ten times over.
Throughout the daily trials – grades, mixed up priorities, makeup, a messy bedroom and bathroom, endless shopping excursions for the latest fashion risk, thinking back to when my only job was to protect her makes it more of a manageable task now – remembering that my only job is to protect her. A couple of weeks ago, her science teacher from last year emailed me and his subject line was “Gardening and the struggling tulip.” As a fellow gardener, he and I share stories about the less hardy floral endeavors we’ve taken on in the garden with dahlias and rhizomes. I did not expect his struggling tulip to mean MY struggling tulip. He had come across her interim grade report in a pile waiting to be dispersed at school, and knowing what my expectations are and what her current focus is he knew that she and I would have words to exchange that evening. In the afternoons, she shares stories about kids at school, some with funny things to say, other girls with hurtful actions and it pains me that there are some mothers who don’t know how their daughters hurt my own and I wish they would appreciate that I’m tending a delicate flower.
I try hard to remind myself that she is mine, but she is not me. She and I are two ends of a different realm and I can’t remember if I was that way as a girl myself or if there will ever be a way to close the gap between us. She is easy going, and I am intense; she is lackadaisical and approaches everything as if she has all the time in the world without a care to fret about; I am an obsessive listmaker who deals with my own clock – filling it with almost too much to do with the parameters that I set. I worry about her grades, her future, the jeans turned inside out on her bedroom floor for days on end, and I lecture. I get tired of hearing my own voice sitting across from her and my eyes fall to her hands. They are bigger than they once were, quickly approaching the size of mine, as an impending lady herself, but they are the same hands wriggling in the open air for the first time waiting for me to protect her.
Threads and Paint 