Growing Versions

I went window shopping with various groupings of my family this weekend. When I go shopping in the mall, I buy what I have to get, or am swindled into getting, and get out as fast as possible. Window shopping is different. It is meant to be enjoyed leisurely. There is no personal cost to staying a minute longer in front of a beautiful display. No burden is levied like there is when I brave a mall. Window shopping with a family member or friend helps you figure out what your loved ones find wonderful. It is window shopping, and stoop shopping and sidewalk shopping all at the same time. I noticed all kinds of buildings and doorways along the way that I normally march past. Window shopping is a slowing down activity.  It is a window of time that helps us see each other and the city in new ways.

Stay, this moment! -Virginia Woolf

Barbie at rest.  We know all about Barbie's habits. She's industrious, well educated--busy healing dogs, delivering babies, being an entrepreneur and designing rocket ships. She has got it going on.  Stylish and in control sum her up.  She's a bit  messy-- at least she is around our house-- dropping shoes, cell phones and evening dresses as she goes, but I've come to learn that she's got another side too. She is often alone. Occasionally, she hangs out in a heap of other Barbies, sipping coffees or camping, but more often than not, she can be found sitting alone staring out into the room, or the closet or the bottom of the bed. Barbie can be contemplative.  She understands better than anyone that between jobs and leisure, she needs to rest. She sits, plotting her next move or channelling peace. She must. If she can find the time to do this, so can I.

“Meanings is not important,"said the BFG. "I cannot be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right.”  I am not a night person. My daughter does not really like being read to. Combined, this means I rarely have the energy to read to her and she reluctantly listens when I do dig deep and find some energy. We have found a solution. She has started reading to me. "Take a bite and I am positive you will be shouting out oh how scrumdiddlyumptious this wonderveg is!”   The BFG by Roald Dahl is a book I have never read before and it is rather exhausting.  His brilliant bending of every word he touches requires concentration. My daughter speculated that he did not use autocorrect.  Explaining to her that autocorrect was not invented when he wrote it was really difficult. She has got the stretch left in her brain to accomodate these inventions, I adore falling asleep to these verbal contortions. " Titchy little snapperwhippers like yo...

I am standing at the curb. I am anxiously thinking ahead.  Kids have been dropped off -- the second the bell sounds signalling it is legally okay for me to walk away from them at the school yard, I run. From a distance, I must look like a covert spy on a special op, instead, I am just going to the next in a series of pre-scheduled times "I need to be somewhere".  And then, as I wait impatiently for my drive, I look down. a tiny, fraction of a leaf is standing ever so briefly upwards. This leaf is on its way to an appointment with being carried on the breeze, perhaps it will get swept up with chip bags and candy wrappers and be buried, or perhaps it will degrade into soil and feed the tree it fell from.  Either way, it is glowing in this moment. It is still and light is pouring through it. The drive pulls up and we drive off.

 There is a time before can'ts get in the way. A wall is easy.  You just have to duct tape together shingles to make the wall or door you want. There is a time before you hold yourself back from any project, a time when a lack of traditional carpentry skill does not stop you from creating a hideout or a fireplace.  This time exists, I have proof.

 Much to my shame, there are days when the iphone, wii and tv take my kids off my hands.  I'm not proud of this, but it happens. To draw  them back into my grasp, the best thing for me to do is to drop everything, housework, work work and head-somewhere-else activities and pick up a marker and start drawing. Like a pied piper, the drawing re-sets the stage and we all begin again.