Growing Versions

The beach begs the question...  ...which footsteps  should we  follow?

We are about to make the big transition that we make every year at this time. It is the transition to being fully dressed.  We are working up to finding regular (indoor/outdoor) shoes and shirts and pants. We are not dressed yet, but we are thinking about it.  Socks will come much much later, but the sweaters and shoes are not far off.

I just watched a great film called  What Maisie Knew .  It is a modern day adaptation of the 1897 Henry James' novel about two parents warring over the possession of their little girl Maisie. The parents, one an ageing rock star (Julianne Moore), the other a businessman (Stephen Coogan), spend a lot of resources to satisfy their self-absorbed and selfish desires to have sole custody of Maisie.  These desires have little to do with Maisie the person, but rather Maisie the possession they are forced to share.  Maisie, played with understated perfection by  Onata Aprile, is a self-possessed little girl with a penchant for playing with little animals characters and drawing.  At first, it seems like her parents almost constant fights, don't really phase her.  However, as you watch the parents sling her between apartments (often in the company of other adults), it begins to sink in that something crucial is at risk. As they approach a house where they w...

This door has a keyhole, but the key is long gone.  The need for it to have a key is long gone too. A door that was designed to be locked now stands open.  I pass through several times a day, never once thinking about needing a key. I have a lot of those. Keys without locks and locks without keys.    How about you?

I will my thoughts to turn charitable as I attempt to scrub away the words "Welcome Santa" that had been lovingly etched just below the fireplace mantel. I try not to focus too much on the stickers of aliens and animals that adorn the door and ceiling and walls around my son's bed. The sidewalk in front of our house is decorated with chalk drawings of creepy crawlies and space ships. The windows are smudged with "window" paint, the table is indelibly marked with paint. Their fingernails are encrusted with chalk dust and their skinned knees are encircled with pen drawn tattoos. What do I have to show for myself? A million key strokes typed in invisible ink. Go ahead children. Make your marks. Invisible ink is too hard to see.

Thunder was found, minding its own business, on a leaf in the backyard on Sunday. He is fuzzy and delicate and in captivity (at the moment).  My son rescued  him or discovered  him, depending on your perspective and plunked him in a jar to accompany him everywhere he goes.  However, almost immediately Thunder got left behind at a friend's house.  This friend has a pet cricket and until we can retrieve Thunder, they will sit and (hopefully) nibble leaves (and apples in the case of the cricket) side by side, separated by glass.  The cricket is also, coincidentally (or not), named Thunder. And that's Thunder, a friend, an idea of a friend, a potential butterfly, but mostly a caterpillar waiting to be set free and be what a caterpillar is.

I have developed this insatiable hankering for Banh Mi sandwich. Banh Mi means baguette in Vietnamese.  The crunch of the pickles and the pleasing tang of the cilantro that gets me every time. I discovered a vegan variety a few weeks ago at the  recently opened Wild Leek  and now I have been high tailing it there every chance I get.  It is almost a problem. My Banh Mi budget is almost exceeding my regular, everything else budget. The other evening, I went to another place called  Indochine .  They too specialize in Banh Mi sandwiches.  As I staggered towards the restaurant door with my friend in the pouring rain, I almost tripped over myself getting to the counter. The saliva was forming and I could almost taste the crunch and savour the sour ting of it on my lips.  As I raced to order yet another Banh Mi sandwich, my friend exclaimed that it was a soup kind of night. Silently, I curled around my Banh Mi sandwich thoughts with a pro...

This weekend we spent a lot of time getting reacquainted with our daughter after she was away for a whole week at camp.  I say re-acquainted because it was her first experience of re-entry. You know, that period when you return from a trip or from an intense experience, and you see things slightly differently than you did before you left? I knew enough to be low key when we picked her up. I have a bad habit of being too demonstrative at reunions and overwhelming her. Slowly but surely, she told us about her experiences. At the end of each day, they had vespers*.  She insisted that it wasn't church, it was a fun, kid's version of church. You sing a song and do a skit around a fire. Although we grew up in the church, we don`t regularly go now. It was reassuring to me to know that she had time away from electronic devices, tv and media. She had time to be outside under the stars, sitting around a fire, and having a chance to listen to nothing but her own voi...

You've probably seen this before, in it this clever little girl presents a logically and succinct argument against segmenting "girls" and "boys" toys.   I love it. I love her fury and her indignation and her ability to sum it up so passionately. I was reminded of her today when my daughter was losing her cool with a Lego  kit.   Tears of frustration started rolling down her cheeks almost as soon as she started. She struggled to decipher the instructions.  What began as an innocent, well meaning activity quickly turned sour.  The process began to stress her out and chip away at her self esteem.  I decided that she needed to step away from the Lego kit. The Lego kit (a tiny lobster) could wait, mayby indefinitely. As she calmed down, I started to hear what she was saying. Lego kits that force you to follow instructions are not fun for everyone.  I'm sure they're great for some kids, but they are really frustrating for others. I told her...

The place where the bright blue sky met the top of the Lego mural captivated me. Looking up at the cloud through the bottom of a Queen Anne's Lace bloom was a new angle for me. The day lily up against the orange wall spattered with black paint struck me sideways. The reflection of sparkling water against the hull of the ship was gorgeous. My son entranced by the balloon animal artist entranced me. Words do not really do these images justice, but then again, neither do photographs. It is worthwhile forgetting my camera every once in a while.

My kids are in the habit of making maps. The maps are not necessarily of places that I am familiar with, but map drawing is a regular part of their activities.  My daughter likes to have maps drawn for her so she can find things (like birthday presents). I like to think that this fascination with making maps corresponds with their emerging concept of time. My daughter has started noticing that some shows that are supposed to start at 6EST, really start at 7 AST here. As their concepts of time develop, their idea that I can be here and you can be there at the same time and that there is an invisible line connecting us is gelling. Two seemingly disconnected points can be connected. Map making also requires that you can visualize a way that cannot be seen all at once. There is a path.  There are intersecting paths.  They lead us from here to somewhere else. We can get there from here. There is a way  to get from here to somewhere else, even if we can't see it. ...

In the winter, I walk along a splinter of cold pavement.  I exit a warmed up work space and enter another warmed up space at the other end of that shard of unrelentingly harsh cold wind swept street. In the summer, walking is a different experience. I weave in and out of streets , curious about people's flowers and properties and signs of growth. A street's shading or lack of it compels me to ease onto it depending on my mood. The shade and the sunlit ways alternately help me to regulate my atmosphere so that I can experience the splendour of summer at just the right temperature. Like pulses travelling through a circuit board, the shade and heat conduct my walk back home.