A Room of One's Own...

I started to think a bit about how much I've changed over the past seven years--since E. was born.  Two of my very dear dear friends are having their own little girls this month (one of them is here already! M.L.K-W, you know who you are!) and this has prompted a little soul-searching on my own...after seeing a beautiful picture of my friend's babe, I began to look through old pictures of E.  Not all of my reminiscences are comfortable.  Like all parents, probably, I wish I had done some things differently--been a little (okay, a lot) less uptight and anxious, never said a sharp word, weaned a little earlier, and not offered candy ever! For some reason this picture of two-year-old E. brings tears to my eyes:

Especially when I consider the real little girl she's become, and don't think I don't shed a surreptitious tear each time she loses a tooth!

But the single biggest, realest mistake I made as a parent was not to have a room of my own right from the start.  A. and I had planned that I would be a stay-at-home mother, and I was entirely behind that concept.  A. would go to work and I would be with E.  As it turned out, I was with her, all the time.  As in pretty much every second for the first three years.  Sissy and I are always talking about how much we hate the notion that you lose yourself when you become a mother--that "mama" is your new identity, and all other parts of you are negated.  But throughout E.'s baby and toddler years, I think I secretly believed that I would be a bad mother if I wasn't subsumed in motherhood.  If I hired a babysitter, let someone else take over for awhile, I'd be wrong.  I even hurried home from marketing as quickly as possible when she was home with A.  

And you know, I made myself quite miserable this way.   In paradoxical effect, I didn't worry less about E., nor did I feel less guilty.  In fact I still feel guilty in retrospect, because although I was home with her, I feel I didn't enjoy her babyhood as I should have.  Of course I didn't! It was claustrophobic and onerous and lonely.  Don't get me wrong, she was a love--in fact, that's what kills me looking back at pictures of her adorable lovey toddler self.

Now that I'm slowly reclaiming parts of myself long dormant--violin-playing, writing, daydreaming, school--I'm realizing more and more how much this was missing from my life. Maybe this sounds a little like '70s self-actualization crap, not to mention ungrateful, but it couldn't be more true.

Okay, that said, I will abruptly change the subject with a question: if any of you have seen the "Little Bear" cartoon on Noggin, why is it that Mother Bear has apparent boobs like a human? Why is the bear family half-anthropomorphized like that? It's downright disturbing.

I'm Never Going Back to My Old School...or am i?

It's so strange for me that E's going to my school, the one I attended from first through twelfth grade.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm delighted, I think it's perfect for her and it was always the only place I wanted her to go--it's truly an idiosyncratic place, in a good way I think--although it's complicated and has its issues (as my readers who, erm, went there with me will agree).

I've gotten over the initial poignancy of it all, sort of.  It does make me feel a bit older though in a way nothing else does.  I mean, E actually has her poetry workshop with the man who taught me! That was thirty years ago! More even.

A, who didn't go there and was never indoctrinated into the mystery religion of the school, is more hesitant to embrace it in all it's weirdness.  I thought that maybe, well, it's not the seventies anymore and "progressive" might mean something different now.  It doesn't, really.  It's still progressive in the same way--the semi-controlled chaos, the wild self-expression, the eccentric children all looking a little disheveled.  All these are things to which A must acclimate.  He has more of an English school system ideal (and not in the Summerhill sense), well-ordered and Classics-heavy.

But E keeps coming home with these stories of the magical things they're doing there, winning A over piece by piece.  Recently they studied Walt Whitman, one of A's favorite poets, and he was so psyched that I swear he teared up a little.  The kids were asked to write a poem in the manner of "I hear America singing," and E wrote something that I love, which I'm going to repeat here:

I hear America singing,

Children coming home from school practicing a new song about a country night.

In the dog park the dogs are barking their wonderful barkish rhythmic sound.

A couple chatting together for the first time.

I hear America singing in every cranny and nook.

A commented that one might ask, what's the point of that lesson? I can't even answer that question because although I know, I'm not sure I can articulate it.  I mean, I know it had a point for me, and does for E too.  

But now I think I've lost some of the joie de vivre that I had (not that I was ever so overjoyed in general, I was actually a nervous nellie most of the time, but I took some joy from my schooling certainly and from all the creating that went on there), and it's interesting to go back to that school every day and confront the loss.  Then of course I worry that this is the precursor to a mid-life crisis, which isn't an attractive look for anyone!

I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm grown now, and it's E's turn, but I'll certainly be grappling every day for as long as she goes there...

Did a Muppet Cough Up a Hairball, or Am I Spinning My Own Yarn?

Well, a little bit of both, I guess:





I'm revealing this gruesome objet in the interests of full disclosure.  I'm not too proud to show you the very unlovely thing I made, because I sort of treasure its unloveliness.  It's been a long time since I've been a greenhorn, and in a way, it's sort of fun to suck at something.  It's relaxing to begin at the beginning.  I haven't done that since...well, since I gave birth to E.  I had no idea how to be a parent...okay, I still don't...but I have faith that I will know how to spin yarn, eventually.  At least at this I can show tangible improvement...and, Lord knows, I have nowhere to go but up...

I suppose I had a romantic idea about spinning from reading "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, about her husband Almanzo's 19th century boyhood:

"Mother always flew.  Her feet went pattering, her hands moved so fast you could hardly watch them.  She never sat down in the daytime, except at her spinning wheel or loom, and then her hands flew, her feet tapped, the spinning-wheel was a blur or the loom was clattering, thump! thud! clickety-clack!"

I have some housewifely envy of Mother Wilder's abilities, and her skill at managing the complexities of a farmhouse before washing machines and frozen food...and I love to connect with the past in this way, even though it's just a taste of it.

What's the last thing you learned to do from scratch?

Bum Scare

So, was it a bomb scare or was it a bum scare?

It's really hard to tell. But between the swastikas recently adorning our local synagogues and sidewalks, and the weapons cache found in a luxe apartment nearby (of course, this was the same guy, as it turns out, a lovely fellow really), this neighborhood is gettin' kinda hectic. Which is funny because it's super-fancy, filled to the brim with bourgeoisie (and I mean this in the Marxist sense); they even have a sort of an urban country club they all belong to, for Gosh sakes. I let A, E, and I out of this equation because we're here on the largesse of others and I refuse to believe that our hearts and values are in the wrong place. Also, we're actually poor if you compare us to our neighbors...

Anyway, I digress. Tonight when I glanced out the front window, onto our very very quiet and out-of-the-way residential street, I saw an enormous gathering of police officers, police cars, and even an ESU truck. They seemed to be searching the park across from our house. A looked and told me it was the bomb squad! As we watched, a cop came with a search light and another cop with a shovel! All the cops but these two evacuated the park, and they proceeded to dig up a large patch of ground. As I peered from four stories up, I caught a sudden blast of light in my eyes--it was a flashlight pointed right at the window--and a cop yelling at me to "get back." Okay, now that's a little too exciting for me; not words you want to hear directed into the warm comfort of your living room. But maybe I'm spoiled? I did "get back"... but only long enough to turn off the lights and retrieve the binoculars...

Well, the story, thank goodness, ended in anticlimax. After the digging, and the replacing of the dirt, and the bomb-sniffing dog, and a bunch of milling around, the cops left with their truck and cars.

So, what the hell was that? Who would even make a threat of a bomb here on this little cul-de-sac? It's like making a bomb threat on the local yarn store in Hudson Falls. A has another theory: he maintains that someone phoned into the precinct a complaint about a bum in the park (we do this on occasion, like when there's a bum lounging about on the platform of the children's jungle gym, scratching himself inappropriately and yelling at passersby--ie, toddlers). In the manner of all good games of "telephone," well, you can take it from there...

Dr. Frizzle in Maxi-Max

Do you know about super maximum security penitentiaries? Maxi-max? Well, poor Dr. Frizzle has been sentenced to such a life, and not for any crime he has committed.  Where once this proud hamster roamed freely through a spacious three-cage compound (bigger than some NYC studio apartments! ba-dum-bum), now he is relegated to one cage, and this cage in lockdown:

Note the cleverly-wrapped page wire.  Why? Because of our mouse "infestion" (as E has so humorously neologized).  These mice, though tiny, are repulsively abundant.  All our best efforts to date have failed to stop them from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.  And now, most recently, they have begun to "visit" poor Dr. Frizzle in his home.  Last week, A saw THREE of these creatures crouched around his food dish, chowing down, while Dr. F. cowered in his tower room.  Why doesn't he fight them off? He's enormous by comparison.  But I guess he's just too sweet-tempered, that old guy.  So finally, we've fortified the cage, hardened the target, if you will, to borrow from criminal justice lingo.

Yet, just last night, I heard a frantic squeaking.  Yes, another mouse had made his way in, through a tiny hole I'd neglected to cover, but couldn't find his way out again.  He was terrified, weeping in his little mousish way, while Dr. Frizzle just sat and stared at him. Ugh.  Needless to say, after I'd dealt with the mouse, washed out the cage, washed my hands about eighty or so times, soothed Dr. Frizzle with soft croons and caresses (yes, hamsters need these ministrations...), and stopped up the last hole, I felt strangely defeated. What now? A BB gun?

Teeny Tiny Knitting

After reading this post at Too Little Time's place, I was seized with a tiny sock mania. It seemed like the perfect solution to my, of late, inability to finish an entire pair of socks. I was definitely suffering from Second Sock Syndrome. Tiny socks are perfect--not only do you make only one, but that single is, well, tiny. I actually balked when E asked me to knit her American Girl a pair. A pair?! Never again, not even weeny ones.

So, between TLT's post and this instructional one, using size 0000 double pointed needles, I came up with this little guy:

This one, as suggested, will become a keychain very soon.  I sense more tiny sock keychains in my future.  

My Stomping Grounds

I've been in school for a long, long time. 34 years, to be exact. And in that time, I've come to realize that I simply can't do school work at a desk. I tried in high school to work at the beautiful desk in the study in my grandparents' house, where we lived, but I always ended up on the little couch, balancing my notebooks on my knees and my textbooks on the soft arm. In college, I tried the library carrels and my spacious dorm room desks, but always got my best work done in the smoking lounge, curled in a chair with conversation all around me, or sprawled on my bed. I even had my computer (a Mac Classic, which seems almost quaint now) on an old trunk so that I typed papers cross-legged on the floor in front of it. I really did accomplish more in these relaxed circumstances, even surrounded by noise and activity, than in silence and upright position. Somehow that always seemed like too much pressure. It helps that I have a preternatural ability to focus, to the exclusion of anything short of bombs going off around me. My mother tells me that she had this tendency too, and actually preferred to study and write papers in the noisiest, most crowded places on campus.

Now instead of feeling guilty about this, I embrace it under the Whatever Works (or should that be the Cookies Before Dinner) Principle. That's one of the nice things about being older--you can do things the way you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. So now I have my laptop, and I work at the coffee table in front of the fireplace:



And if I need to gaze into space to marshal my thoughts, I can gaze at the Rabbi:



Or at the toy theater my sister made (I suggest once again clicking on this photo to see the details):



Or at a bookshelf (this one has some of my favorite books):



All in all, I like to have cheerful, civilian things around me when I work on my dissertation, otherwise I get to feeling gloomy and weird. The only thing better than the coffee table, though, would be across an oak trestle table from the Potions Master (I don't mind sitting upright for the sake of romance)...we'd be diligent, but every once in a while I'd look up and catch his eye...and he would raise a sardonic eyebrow at me and say "your field is mere ephemera, the basest of all the Muggle studies..."

Oops, didn't mean to get a little psychotic on ya there...

Some Inspiration

I had a late bday celebration tonight and got some lovely things. Did I mention that I love presents? I really really do.

My talented sissy made me a beautiful illustration of my man friend hard at work on his dissertation (a little non-canonical elaboration, although doesn't it seem likely that SS has his doctorate?):

It's hard to see all the incredible cross-hatching in this photo, but she tells me that it took twenty pen nibs to make (if you click on the photo, you can really get a gander).  I hung it up where I can see it from my work space, and I'm hoping the Master's industry will inspire me to my own.

Dad: October 7 1943-January 17 2005

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes,  

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Hark! I hear them--ding-dong bell.

What Do a 1915 A4 Gibson Mandolin, Severus Snape, and a Whirlpool Stackable Washer-Dryer Have in Common?

Yes, you guessed it, they are my favorite beaus. A doesn't mind, though. We have a swinging marriage. The washer-dryer is actually moving in with us soon, right into the kitchen. I have a great deal to say about this washer-dryer, and I will say it soon. Whoever's reading this, you may feel free to skip over that bit. When I get a new boyfriend, I become insufferable.