but they would if they could

by dailies

When I leave yoga class I pop on the phone and see a series of messages. “Mom… MOM… Mom it’s urgent please come pick me up… MOM help”. I know my son is smart enough to get professional assistance in case of emergency, but.

(Nels has always had panache when reporting traumatic events. A few weeks ago while tucking into some ramen I got a call: “Mom. I just fell off a cliff. I’m covered in cuts and bruises. … well. You can’t see them, though.”)

Home and Nels shakes his head at me, silently. For some reason he doesn’t want me to tell his father what the emergency was: some older high school boys, threatening Nels and his friends, and using horrible language. Nels wants to know if people can tell he’s different, because he’s homeschooled. Based on the homophobic and misogynistic slurs these boys were using, I can confidently tell my son he wasn’t targeted by any fault of his own.

It’s gorgeous out. Hot. My mother-in-law sent us artichokes; those have to go from their pots to the garden soon. My hosta is looking wonderful; a new hydrangea has popped up in the back corner. The mint plant is looking well, and my succulents need transport and cutting. Last year’s strawberries are looking spry, and the pumpkin bed is ready for this year’s crop – potatoes. I picked up two bales of sweetgrass today, to seed them. Phoenix and I backed down my way-too-narrow driveway today, and pulled the bales out for readiness. That’s about as butch as I get around these parts.

We’ve been down to one car for almost seven months. Today we limped the other to the shop. The fellow there grimaced and waved his hands, preparing us for the worst. Well. Our surviving car needs quite a bit of work, at that. I’m down in that studio stitching and cutting and ironing and getting things out the door, and getting paid. Supporting teenagers and all that: today Nels tells me: “I can’t *believe* how hungry I am!” as he steps into the living room with a sandwich, piping bowl of soup, and cut-up fruit.

A candle, incense, a hot shower. Night falls once again, in our warm and safe home.

Baking
by dailies

Baking

Melting butter and chocolate in the double-boiler; a cake cools on the counter. In the living room: four teen/preteens stuff themselves on our couch and take to lunch with alacrity.

It isn’t so much that I want to be with the kids, goofing or playing. But providing them with a date, an event, food, a movie, a drive through the countryside: this, it seems, is my vocation. I can do maths and work and produce and write and all that but what I like best is making a home for these young people, their boundless energies, their optimism, their love of one another and of music and play and the physical world. I get completely irritable about the bullocks that grownups are up to and find the conversation of children immensely refreshing.

My studio is alive again – that is to say, a mess. Painting scarlet shapes on blood-red canvas, on wine-hued twill. Another project, another design. Washing dishes, leaning against the counter while my son is asking me something about his homework but I’m thinking of design: topstitching, how many underlayers for the quilted effect? Will this new project work out or be an awkward failure?

Outside the warm weather has changed to a more typical spring chill. My husband mows the lawn; the cats sprawl on furniture not even purring – dead to the world. Likewise, my children fold their lanky frame into corners of the loveseat or bed, chewing through another massive pile of library books their father has provided them. As the children grow into adulthood, my eldest especially, their babyhoods are more on my mind than ever. The age I think of my daughter most is when she was two; she so little resembles that blond, cherubic little presence but in other ways she is astonishingly similar. The same strength, the same scowl, and the same beautiful crooked smile. Her babyhood flowed through my fingers like sand, as much as I tried to enjoy every moment.

a gradual thaw

by dailies

Nels and I pass the Trave-Lure in Aberdeen. “‘Aberdeen’s Finest’,” my son says, making “air-dick quotes” with his hands. I laugh – to myself – but keep quiet. I am thinking about the lives we live and how the world drives past. So many suffer and suffering doesn’t have a downtown crummy address especially; it lives in the human heart.

A moment later my boy asks, “Mom? What’s the difference between a motel, a hotel, an inn, and a cozy?” A COZY! What is this, even? And I am dying over how his voice sounds when he says the word, “cozy”. I don’t want to tell him a “cozy” is not anything in the hospitality industry, because basically I never want to hear him stop saying “cozy.”

I tell him what little I know. This leads to a frank discussion of a vacation: Nels wants one. The sun is out, first day of spring, and anything seems possible, even if it’s kind of not.

Spring. It is a little incredible to believe it is here. But it is. The buds are flowering; the air, though still cold, is changing. The sun is out and it has a favorable look.

Spring / Ocean

Nels called his father today for a favor – asking Ralph to drive out to pick up Phoenix, so we would have time to visit the “wildcats” out in Westport. Ralph didn’t know what our son meant, so asked me for the phone, to clarify. When I explained Nels meant, feral cats that live at the jetty, Ralph laughed. And of course our son took no small delight in finding, and attempting to feed, the ragtag little bunch flitting in and out of the rocks.

“This is gonna get weird. TWO cats.”

Sekrit Catz

My son reminds me that life is really good As Is. Needs no improvement, nothing to blow up bigger than it is, or try to make smaller, either.

 

synchronicities

by dailies

The man swimming in the lane adjacent to mine has beautiful thighs.  They are a comfort as they flash in strobe against his small dark Speedo suit. He and I keep the same clip for a few laps. I don’t know about him, but I’m not trying to go faster or go slower; I definitely have too far to swim to mess about. “You do you and I’ll do me,” as the adage says.

That said, it’s hard not to speed up or slow down when someone adjacent makes pace.

Outside it’s balmy and warm. Spring it starting to flicker at the edges. The blossoms are out and the pavement smarts from the sun’s sincere warmth.

Winter habits are hard to break. Last night, on the agenda: Ralph and I watched Shark Attack III: Megalodon. Yeah that’s right, I watch terrible movies, on purpose, and I can’t seem to stop. SEND HELP because two weeks ago I cockily made a bet Ralph couldn’t stay up to watch all of Snowbeast (2011) with me. I was begging for death by the end. As for Megalodon – and unlike Snowbeast – the film is definitely in the, “so bad it’s good” category; the poor dubbing in particular makes it a surreal, cheese-tastic experience all the way through. The film weasels around for a full hour by trying to sell a regular-style shark before it finally heaves a big sigh and pulls some crumpled-up special effects from a dirty trouser pocket: the so-called “megalodon” – which is kind of like, the icing on the ass-cake.

Watching the film Ralph is like: “What’s with that guy? Is he drunk?” Me: “I don’t think the character is drunk if that’s what you’re asking.”

slant rhyme

by dailiesUncategorized

made some hats
need some scratch

Pom-Poms

buy this batch?

Also: if you are a local, I am looking for babies and kids as models, so I can photograph some of my creations. I have several items that are not being published in any way because I do not have children to model them. I am hoping especially for newborns in the zero to three months’ range; also kids up to three. AND of course any child model (and carer) gets a lovely Hoga-playdate plus a hand-sewn or hand-knit bit of loveliness from YOURS TRULY.

So. That’s it, for now.

publishing. 2 things:

by dailies

Nels

1.

I wrote a piece at Underbellie: “what you could stand to know about addiction”. My brother sent me an email response that read, in part: “Holy F that is well written. Can you please get that published somewhere?  I barely relate to the subject and was still nearly moved to tears.”

Welp. Of course I am published. On my site. I think he meant publish in a way where I get paid? (or maybe read by more than twelve people?) #LOLsob because I think it is my destiny to be a largely-unpaid writer. I’ve been doing this since I could write, so there’s that.

2.

Speaking of my writing, for pay or otherwise, I have had only six customers purchase the new Tumblehome. That’s like, SIX. This kind of response is obviously not adequate for me to continue the work needed to curate, write, design, edit, print, assemble, and publish. However, I know I could make a little more effort in trying to distribute and get word out, and I am willing to do so.

In the meantime, after two printing mishaps (and therfore a late send-out), here is an alluring picture of the hand-assembled option. The zine is available in paper, or for a $2 download.

The New Tumblehome!

Our next issue comes out in April.

Family life: the other day Nels found the first crocus bloom in our neighborhood. He made me come take a photo, and he has been watching it every morning.

Yes. Spring is really going to happen.

1st Crocus Of 2013