Growing Versions

Yes, I know I misspelled couch.  I meant couch, not coach. I have this bad habit of going to bed before my kids. I am trying to change things by laying on the couch and instead of waiting for their impossibly late bedtime (9 p.m.) for stories, I get them to bring me stories and we take turns reading them with silly voices. My son has a real command of a hushed, authoritarian and his whole body is composed as he reads. My daughter adds commentary as she goes that keeps me in stitches. It is entertaining. They are learning and my guilt is assuaged. The best part is I am lying down and still fulfilling my duty.

This time of year reminds me of travelling, of train stations, and carting around bread and cheese in my back pack and sun drenched moments sitting on the edge of forests and rivers and city parks.  The combination of blue skies, wood smoke and diesel take me back to a stoop in Istanbul, a fruit vendor in Delhi and a canteen in Budapest. Yesterday, in my own city, without a passport, that feeling suffused the air. I was walking downtown on an errand and that wood smoke laced crisp air sent me on a different route than usual. I went left instead of right, up the hill, instead of down. I took the next street over when I usually never do. I ended up seeing the city through new eyes and the food trucks and market vendors could have been anywhere. I walked through the train station and I could have been going somewhere. I came home having travelled somewhere.

There were two falls a few years ago when my son was obsessed with chestnuts. The pre-school had an enormous chestnut tree in the backyard and it yielded dozens of beautiful chestnuts to collect and to carry in pockets and buckets. Wordlessly, that tree introduced my son to the word chestnut.   "This thing here I am giving you, that thing you are smoothing with your thumb is what they call a chestnut." The glossy brown sheen of chestnuts entered his lexicon of childhood in a way that it had never entered mine. Now, as I walk to work and pass by chestnuts on the ground, I pick one up so that I can rub my thumb over its smooth surface for the rest of the way. I remember that time of his learning about chestnuts. I learned the word chestnut at the same time.

For the past three years there has been a version of the Hallowe'en vending machine.  It was initially invented to deal  with us monstrous parents intent on stealing Hallowe'en candy.  It was a little rough around the edges, but it definitely resembled a vending machine. Put money here, take one candy. Last year, it was resurrected  again. This year, a full three weeks ahead of schedule, a whole Saturday was devoted to creating the latest version. Like an Apple Launch , the vending machine version 3 was launched with much fanfare, a little bickering, and a lot of treats (for a price, mind you). I introduce, generation 3 Hallowe'en vending machine. Separate slots for pennies and bills.     Easy to use dispensing slot.  Plastic viewing panel This version has improved on earlier designs to dispense candy to greedy parents.

I don't think I have enough words or the right ones to describe my child's love of balloons. He views balloons the same way other kids view lego, full of possibilities and as tools of his imagination.  Balloons can be engines, they can be ornaments, they can be fasteners, they can be bombs, they can carry messages ( and they do)... There are no limits when it comes to balloons.  I really had no idea. My mind was so limited before. Why don't, you ask, do I not have more balloons in my life?  At a children's birthday party where a magician was making balloon animals, my son patiently waited his turn and then asked the magician to make him a sweater with the balloon.  

When I step away from writing for a while due to illness or work or whatever, I force myself to write something. Anything.  I try my best to not get too down on myself about what or how I write that something.   I write to Prime the Pump.  Sure enough, once primed, I start to get eager to write, I start to narrate posts in my head on my way home. The tap begins to drip.

Each night, when I come home from work, I get this urge to light a candle. For me it is not thought through or particularly intentional, just an instinct. I started doing it a few years ago, as the supper hour starts to gradually get darker. It is a flame that invites me to stay, not go. To put my house in order and make it a place I want to be. With it's glow, I begin to make use of the fuel I have harvested from the summer sun. I turn my attention inward, to protect us from the cold.