Growing Versions

 After days and days of rain, and during a pause in the rain before its resumption, we managed to get outside and not get wet.    We decided to go check out the playground behind the bushes, the secret playground.  We got there, behind the bushes, only to find that all the old playground equipment had been ripped up and not replaced.  On the way back, we discovered that no one had locked up another off limits place-a ball hockey arena , and we got to explore its mysterious dimensions for a little while.

My earliest memories of coming to visit my grandmother in the city are framed in with bright red paint.  My grandmother's home was trimmed in fire engine red and the back yard was enclosed with a metal fence spray painted scarlet.  There are also some very old pieces of furniture that have long since been glossed over with paint.  For me it symbolizes the ultimate effort in making the old new.  It is bold and undeniable and it can vanquish even the most cracked, rotting thing and take your mind off the surface underneath. Yesterday, as I strolled around this old-by-North-American-standards-downtown for the first time in ages, I was struck by this very red building.  Temporarily not in service, but holding out for something new.

The day finally came when we could light the number 5 and he could blow it out. Just like Christmas and Hallowe'en and Easter, it has been established that Birthdays are the kinds of events that happen again . It has been confirmed.  Now that "5" has been reached, a 1/2 candle would certainly be helpful in keeping track of time as we countdown to the next milestone.

Meaning is not in things, but in between them. -Norman O. Brown I did some spring/summer cleaning this week. For whatever reason, I get the urge to vacuum around the time of my son's birthday. I guess the memory of his birth nudges me to evacuate the dust and the popcorn kernels and start fresh. As the floor became visible again and counter tops and corners were emptied, it was the space between things that spurred me on.  Walking around unobstructed, without bumping into bags of clothes destined for the charity shop or piles of art work, feels like walking on a wide open terrain full of potential. Even the molecules of air between objects has been refreshed. The time I will save not looking for car keys and permission slips I can reinvest in  something different, something fun, something I have not thought of ...yet.

She likes to think she's perfect. She knows the right things to say and the right time to say them. She likes to think she's just and even handed and neutral. She has a high tolerance for chaos and ambiguity and can heat sugar at a high temperature without letting it scorch.  She makes crafts and, conducts plays, holding together the whole thing with scotch tape. She's supple and endlessly patient even during the longest, most sluggish afternoons. The trouble is, she is the third person. The third person casts a shadow over the first. The first person gets beyond frustrated with the limits of scotch tape, gets weary with endless plays that have to end jaggedly because there is no more will to sit through them and she frets and sighs loudly over how the crafts gum up the grooves of the table.   First person moves too fast for slow afternoons. I am kicking out third person. She makes everything harder. I'll make my peace with scotch tape....

We've all been a little frayed at the edges these days.   The temptation to tug at the loose threads and pull hard has been there for a long while. Now that summer is here, we can do just go ahead and do that and knit ourselves back together later.

so you want to be a writer? "If it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it, unless is comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. If you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently, if it never does roar out of you, do something else." -Charles Bukowski I am waiting patiently for it to roar out of me.

"The useless days will add up...these things are your becoming." Dear Sugar a.k.a. Cheryl Strayed Tonight, within the space of an hour, when I thought I had no more stretch to stretch, I ended up being stretched a little. My son gave advice on how to scrape the deck, played "corral the ball with the skipping rope" (just like a horse) and invented a version of badminton, meticulously soaked his head with the water in a coke can over the sink and planned in minute detail how to make a hanging spider out of a ball of string. He moved effortlessly between these   tasks . I thought, man, I sit all day at my desk.  I manage people and send emails and orchestrate things over the phone and pay bills and negotiate deals and I am not nearly as productive as he is being in this one short hour.  He is using muscles I never use.

Obama left me a note in my dream last night telling me that he was recommending me to be his speech writer in New York (!) But his first proviso was that I had to "simplify". I was chuffed and went off to show others what he had written to me.  However, by the time I found someone to show, the rest of the note, which had been written in chalk, had rubbed away. Simplify was written in ink.

A new trend in posting art work has emerged in our house.  My son, snuggling with the cat, yelled from the next room asking that I take a picture and "post it online" so that everyone is Scotland could see him  (and the cat).  The last few pieces of art that have been created or brought home have been tacked up in front of a window facing out.  The rationale is simple.  Even though the window is not on the ground floor, this presentation method allows people "out there" to see the work.  As preschool ends, and my son turns his face (and whole self) towards the mysterious prospects of big school, he is starting, little by little to unfold outwards. He steps towards a new phase, where I will have an incrementally decreasing  share of  a vantage point on his inner thoughts and feelings.

Thanks for caring enough to listen openheartedly to me and what I have had to say about the world, about slides and  books and balloons and pumpkins. Thank you for the chestnut tree. Thank you for helping me take care of myself and seeing myself as a little person with a point of view. Thanks for supporting my efforts to take care of other people and animals and creatures. Thanks for not automatically assuming I am straight and for not labelling me "all boy" or "a princess". Thank you for being careful about what snacks you gave me. Thank you for trusting that I would create interesting things with paint and glue and beautiful everyday objects. Thank you for believing in me and not dismissing my attempts to communicate in all the different ways that I can. Thank you for letting me wear pjs to school two times and for letting me bring my flashlight to school. Thank you for the obstacle courses. Thank you for agreeing with me that the wor...

I heard a really great interview with  Joni Mitchell  a few years ago.  It was a little startling hearing about her experiences coming of age in the 60s and realizing how much has changed in the world regarding gender and a reminder that maybe it hasn't changed as much as we'd like.  It was riveting listening to a person who has been driven to pursue art as a means of survival--first to buy cigarettes and food, and later to stay intact in her vision and morals.  Towards the end of the interview, they played her song Both Sides Now.  I had forgotten how beautiful this song is and hearing it and re-reading the lyrics reminded me of the cusp that my then eight year old, and now 10 and a half year old, teeters upon.  One foot on the bank of childhood and another poised to move into the swiftly moving current towards adulthood.   Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell   (as found at jonimitchell.com) Rows and flows of angel hair And ice c...

Like clockwork. Like rising tides. The inclination to bring work  out to the deck into the June sunshine returns. She draws, she thinks out loud, she creates, she orders, she explores, she brings attention to, she publishes her inner world on the front deck.                                         

 It is fun fair season. Bean bag toss  It is has spilled over into playtime at home too. She thought of everything. (Just in case we got injured.) This afternoon my daughter made a fun fair version part-sunday school picnic-part- school fundraiser.   Bouncy ball on a spoon obstacle course.  If you won a game, you got to get a prize in the "fish pond" , just like the real thing.

I usually mishear lyrics and I never bother to check and discover my error because they don't have much impact on me.  They just kind of blend together most of the time. However, every once in a while I hear a song the stops me in my tracks and it becomes imperative that I find out exactly what has been sung. Never felt a thing by Carleton Stone  is one of those songs . My love, when the needle hits the vein, I expected it to hurt, but I never felt a thing.

I just have to remember to breathe.

In a post-coin operated world, it is getting trickier and trickier to deal in cash.  As we all know, transactions without cash have a cost, an actual fee for moving the virtual money around, and the costs we incur by being more oblivious about the actual amount of our money (or the bank's money) we're shifting around.  However, I have also started to wonder how a cashless society is understood by my kids. Recently, we had a fun time playing with friends in a river that necessitated a trip to the laundromat to dry out our shoes.  The coin slot happily took our money, even though it didn't always reciprocate by actually starting when we pressed the button. I couldn't help but think that it was rare moment of my kids observing and participating in a coin transaction. Their experience with payphones is limited and they have only occasionally seen me use one. My daughter asked me if I knew what penny candy was.  She told me she was studying it in social studies. ...

A few years back, when I was feeling particularly portable, the song,  Light Enough to Travel by The Be Good Tanyas  , became my anthem. It's melody has become a muted memory as of late, but today, after a weekend of sun and ocean, I am beginning to think I might be able to claim it once again. Maybe I can keep it light enough to travel. Airstream light. Backpack light. Empty hands light. Hear it now.   Light Enough to Travel -The Be Good Tanyas

Nothing is built on stone;   all is built on sand,  but we must build as if the sand were stone. -Jorge Luis Borges