Brooklyn, July 4th

Elanor and her friend were, for one afternoon, captains of industry on a bright hot corner of Brooklyn. The lemonade, squeezed by hand in a sticky orgy of juice and seeds and pulp, served in pressed glass pitchers, took pride of place. Ice was dipped with tongs, again and again, money changed hands, a great deal of money for little girls; the chocolate in the cookies, the marshmallow in the treats, melted a little, but no customer complained, and the heaps of sweets were decimated by day's end. With frequent breaks for cold seltzer and visits to the sprinklers across the street in the park, and quick intense water fights, sudden dripping little clouds of activity, another summer afternoon passed in the dusty diffuse light of old-growth trees and the heat of children. Another afternoon, like so many others before and to come.



Expectant Before:



Aftermath:



(a piece of my summer, for Jimmy and Mr M)

From the Clamor of Traffic

Happy is the man who drinks

his final egg cream

before leaving the smog

and the heat of the city.

From the closed, shadowed streets

to the wide, open skies.

From the clamor of traffic

to the song of the wind.

Under a tree in the country

all the things in the world

are fulfilled.

--written by Hedgehog, June 2010

The Road Trip that Was and Wasn't

Photo taken by Hedgehog somewhere in Louisiana

It's nearly a year from the day that my sister and I and then-8-year-old Hedgehog set out on our epic road trip through the Deep South, and I've been reminiscing lately.

The most remarkable thing, in hindsight, is the fact that Hedgehog missed the trip in its entirety. When I say she missed it, I don't mean she wasn't physically there, a fixture in my rearview mirror, stoically passing the thousands of miles strapped to her booster seat. I mean that she wasn't there with us, looking out the window, marveling over the eternities of strange sights: the strangling forests of kudzu, the eerie dusklit swamps and marshes, the signs enticing us toward Stuckeys and boudin, fireworks, peaches, pecans, above-ground cemeteries, the old mansions and slave quarters, alligators, dancehalls, and boiled peanuts.

A committed and compulsive reader, Hedgehog saw the trip as nothing more than an opportunity to read all day every day, across the hours and through the states, all the way across the country, four thousand miles total: a great tipping, sliding pile of books at her side. For her, Mississippi and Alabama will be remembered as a land of dragons and battles, Louisiana and Georgia full of magical swords and brave girl warriors--all punctuated by momentary flights of reality in the form of waffle houses and bright truck stops, necessary leg-stretchings, and portable lunches of tuna salad crackers.

Just once I insisted she catch a glimpse, when we passed through the French Quarter, and she obliged, looking up from her book with glazed eyes. I'm not sure to this day what she actually saw--the ornate little houses and rambling streets, or something else entirely, her mind still in the printed word?

Often as parents we have expectations of just how we want our children to experience some event, outing, or even a sculpture, painting, or story we tell; the truth is that, often, it just won't go as we hope. It can be hard to let go of our expectations, hard not to badger ("put down your book and look at that amazing view!!!"), hard not to pressure, hard not to feel disappointed when things don't go as planned or the enthusiasm just isn't there.

The biggest lesson I've learned as a parent is to try as hard as I can simply to let Hedgehog be. Not to force experiences on her. Not to feel let down when she doesn't react as expected, not to be overly invested in her reactions. That road trip was a real turning point for me in this regard. I very quickly came to a decision to let her read as much as she wanted, and not to insist she look at, or even pretend to care about, the marvels of the road.

I like to think that she will look back with fondness and satisfaction on our odyssey. The voices laughing chatting and arguing from the front seat, the country music on and off as we passed through local bandwidth, all a background murmur. Free from parental vigilance and pressure, in a cozy car full of books she could lose herself in the intensity of her stories. We had our adventures...and I am very certain she had hers.

O Brave New World

"O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is!

O brave new world,

That has such people in't!"

Hedgehog is so excited to play the part of Miranda in the third-grade production of "The Tempest" this spring...which only goes to show how very very different she and I are, the difference becoming more and more apparent with age. As a child, I always had certain deeply ambivalent feelings about being the center of attention. Within my comfort zone--in conversation, among friends--I enjoyed it. But performing? Oh goodness no. From the youngest age, I became weak-kneed and hyperventilatey at the mere thought of standing before an audience and saying lines.

In junior high and high school, I was very involved in puppetry (which gives you an idea of what my school was like, that puppetry was a serious pursuit). I loved the creative and mechanistic process of puppet construction, the engineering involved, and learning how to manipulate them in performance. But most of all, I was glad of the opportunity to go before an audience yet not be seen--hidden away behind a barrier--my puppets spoke for me, and were brave for me. Still, even then, crouching in the darkness, clutching my puppets' sticks in sweaty hands, I had stage fright.

Hebrew School plays were torture. I remember playing Potiphar's wife in a production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and going through agonies beforehand. My mother had to literally stand in the wings and shove me onstage...a kindly shove, but a shove nonetheless...

When we had to recite memorized passages of poems and plays, as we frequently did, I could sometimes cajole my teacher into hearing my lines out in the hall away from my classmates. Even then, I would blush my way through the process.

My Bat Mitzvah was a crucible. Eighty pairs of eyes on me, watching as I chanted Torah and gave my homily...

I overcame this terrible performance anxiety to some extent, finally, when I taught college. I had to, or my then-livelihood would have been in jeopardy. Although I had to catch my breath before beginning class, and my palms were always clammy, I even came to enjoy the lectures, the feeling of power that came with commanding attention from a room full of people--and sometimes, when the lectures were good and the vibe was there, the connection between student and teacher, it was something like euphoria! And I could suddenly understand, just a little bit, the appeal of performing...

But never ever in childhood...which is why I admire my 9-year-old Miranda so much. She's excited--not scared, not self-effacing, but genuinely excited to learn lines and get dressed up and stand before an audience and act! Simply amazing to me.




Illustration of Miranda by Waterhouse

...there grew a golden tree...

Hedgehog is a special girl, serene-looking, waist-length straight hair and fine posture, lovely and composed and well-behaved in school. She reads widely and seriously--an ongoing favorite is Tolkien, which she studies in bed at night like a bible. So when she was assigned to choose a poem or a song to present in class, I was not surprised that she picked Galadriel's Farewell to Lorien, from "The Fellowship of the Ring":

I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold,
and leaves of gold there grew.
Of wind I sang, a wind there came
and in the branches blew.
Beyond the sun, beyond the moon,
the foam was on the sea,
and by the strand of Ilmarin
there grew a golden tree...

and it goes on from there, and of course I had tears in my eyes when she sang it to me, in made-up tune and a little off-key, because she herself is so very Elven (in the Tolkien sense--graceful, brave, upright, and otherworldly) and because I am amazed by her all the time.

Hedgehog is a good girl, but as I've said before, she seems to have an affinity for a certain type of boy...

The afternoon of her presentation, when I asked her how it went, she was much much more interested in telling me about this year's naughty boy (there's always one, isn't there) who brought in lyrics with curse words, and how the teachers told him that he couldn't read them aloud in class.

What was the song? I inquired with great avidity.

She started to giggle, It was the Beastie Boys, Mama.

Ah, I replied. Most of their songs have bad words in them. So which song was it?

My Elven 3rd grader, who recites elegies to lost worlds and worships the beauty of Old English, began to stagger under the weight of her laughter, overcome with the wonderfulness of being bad.

So? Tell me! I demanded.

She was practically falling down with hilarity.

Finally she squeaked out, but with precision:

"B-Boys Makin' with the Freak Freak!"

Oh, indeed. B-boys makin with the freak freak. I could see it all so clearly: as Hedgehog stood to the side and watched in delight, clutching her own poem like a talisman, the bad little boy rode those words in a glory of naughtiness, at least equal in daring and boldness to the heroes of Middle Earth!

Victorian Spirit Photography

An ethereal little girl, a few yards of silk chiffon, an inexpensive camera...a spirit.

Answers

I sat quietly on the couch this afternoon and watched the two heads bent together over Hedgie's math homework, and listened to their voices in earnest discussion: Hedgie's high little one piping up in interest, questioning, and Sarge's bass notes answering.

I remembered those dark winter evenings with my father, our heads together over my math homework, the lamplight glinting off his gold glasses, the red of his beard; I could hear the bass notes in his voice, the patient explanations, feel the sweet eureka moment as I understood the equation; I could see us together again.

Filled up with a Feeling

At the dinner table yesterday, Hedgie was telling Sarge about our afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art.

Hedgie: We had lunch in the cafeteria, and I had the children's meal, a peanut butter banana and nutella panini and apple slices. There was just the right amount of nutella so that it oozed out the sides but not too much. And there were three slices of apple, and they were very crisp and sweet. They really know what children like. And we saw an exhibit called "Waste Not."

(We described the exhibit to Sarge and then Hedgie was silent)

Hedgie: Mama cried from it, while we were walking through. It's so embarrassing when you guys cry like that! Like how you cried, daddy, when you showed me that part of "Diva" with the opera singer.

(more silence)

Sarge: Do you know why grown-ups cry like that, Hedgie?

Hedgie: No.

Sarge: It's because we're filled up with a feeling we have--

Hedgie: and you have to let it out?

Sarge: Well, no, it just has to come out, even if we try to hold it in. Like laughter, it's the same thing. Sometimes it comes out as crying, sometimes as laughing. Just two different sides of a feeling that has to come out.

Hedgie: Why do you have the feeling?

Sarge: I don't know. Sometimes with a song or a piece of art, maybe it reminds us of another time or place, or a person who isn't with us anymore...

Hedgie: I guess I can understand that. But it's still embarrassing.


Filled up with a feeling--I so often am. I long ago gave up trying to hide honest tears from Hedgehog. I couldn't anyway, as Sarge says--sometimes it just has to come out.





here's the art that made me cry: "Waste Not" by Song Dong; also an explanation of the installation on the MOMA site.

Beginning

With the fall of this year comes Hedgie's first cello lessons.

In my family this is one of the most important rites of passage, the day you play the first sweet and terrible notes of your very own instrument. I can barely remember the details of my first violin lessons--I was only five--but I do remember how timid and awestruck I was--the only feeling that has come close since was the first time I held baby Hedgie in my arms, afraid to break her. How heavy the quarter-size violin was in my little arms then, how amazing the alchemy of bow to string and then sound...although the little screeches and scritches must have been dreadful indeed to the ears of my patient listeners.

My violin has been with me on my journey for nearly 35 years now, a steadfast companion always, whether spurned or beloved, through all the times musically fallow and musically fertile. Its sturdy presence shielded me from the parodically cruel tendency of Emily, my second teacher, to discipline by rapping her own bow hard across my knuckles. It was the helpful wing-man in my pursuits of a proto-Severus, black-haired Peter with the glowing pallor, the first violin in my high school string quartet (how I quavered under his gaze as he reminded me, with a haughty little tip of his bow, to come in on the correct note). My violin and I spent long afternoons together in the music rooms of my college, and it never complained that I took frequent breaks to stare out the windows at the rain, at the trees changing to fall and then from fall to spring...

We have come all this way from our long-ago beginning. There it is in the corner now, waiting for the rosined bow and for me.

Travelin' Soldier

You don't ordinarily, in the course of things, grapple with existential questions, the really heavy ones, during an end-of-the-year school performance. But there was me today, sitting on the floor in the school lobby, listening to my daughter and her friends, and the whole second grade, sing "Travelin' Soldier," the tears escaping down my cheeks although I tried very hard to blink them away.

I felt an indescribable range of conflicting emotions, as I watched Hedgehog, who is emerging from the cocoon of childhood into an awareness of the world and her place in it, watched her sway to the music, singing with so much feeling in her little soprano voice, unself-consciously as only an 8-year-old can, about grown-up things, war and violence and desperate terror and  first love and loneliness:

Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
He's a little shy so she gives him a smile
And he said would you mind sittin' down for a while
And talking to me,
I'm feeling a little low
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go

So they went down and they sat on the pier
He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you

I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's coming home

So the letters came from an army camp
In California then Vietnam
And he told her of his heart
It might be love and all of the things he was so scared of
He said when it's getting kinda rough over here
I think of that day sittin' down at the pier
And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile
Don't worry but I won't be able to write for awhile

One Friday night at a football game
The Lord's Prayer said and the Anthem sang
A man said folks would you bow your heads
For a list of local Vietnam dead
Crying all alone under the stands
Was a piccolo player in the marching band
And one name read but nobody really cared
But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair



I am not really a Dixie Chicks fan, they and I are politically an ocean apart and I admit to having been offended in the past, but some things pierce the protective armor of ideology, whether or not we want to let them in.  Give this a listen, and then imagine 60 8-year-olds singing it with sweet redemptive force:



*photo: "Vietnam 1969" by Bobster855 from Flickr Creative Commons

Thesis/Antithesis

Hedgehog has taken, inexplicably, to worrying about college. She grills me at least once a week, as I'm putting her to bed. She asks the same questions, I give some variation of the same answers, and it goes something like this:

Hedgehog (worriedly): so, I still don't quite understand about college.

Mama: well, what don't you understand about it, Hedgie?

Hedgehog: For instance, is it just a free-for-all like you said?

Mama: Not really a free-for-all... [it's a total and complete free-for-all, sweetie]

Hedgehog: So, how do you get to your classes and stuff? [will you walk me, mama?]

Mama: It depends on your campus. Some campuses are like little villages, like me and daddy's college. You can just walk to class. Some campuses are big, and there are little shuttle buses to take you around. That's how you get to classes. [When and if you go to classes]

Hedgehog: What do you do on weekends?

Mama: You can hang out with your friends and study, or eat pizza, or go into the city if your college is near one, and you can see a movie... [and go to a kegger, hook up, and make the walk of shame next morning]

Hedgehog: They let you go out like that? [Do you have to tell the teachers before you go out?]

Mama: Hedgehog, there's really no they at college. You're sort of like a grown-up and you can decide where to go and when to go there. [not really a grown-up, more like a clueless, overgrown child...]

Hedgehog: There's a lunchroom to eat in right mama? But, mama, where do you eat on the weekends when the lunchroom is closed? [I'm going to be hungry and confused. Like if it was the weekend now but you and daddy forgot to feed me]

Mama: It's a dining hall, Hedgie, and it's open for three meals a day every day of the week. [you'll still be hungry and confused]

Hedgehog: How long do they give you to eat? [Before the teachers take you back to the classrooms for reading time]

Mama: Pretty much as long as you like. We used to sit sometimes and talk for hours over coffee.

Hedgehog: But does it look sort of like my lunchroom at school? [come on, woman, give me something familiar to hang onto!]

Mama: Yes, but bigger and with more food choices. And ice cream. [and psychodramas enacting themselves at most of the tables]

Hedgehog: You know mama, I keep envisioning [that's a college-level word you've got there chickie!] it like a big building, like the Chrysler Building, and the bedrooms are on one floor, the classrooms on another, the dining hall on another. [I've been reading the Harry Potter books and I really hope it's going to be like Hogwarts]

Mama: No, it's probably going to be more like what I said, like a little town or village with buildings all around. [More's the pity, nothing like Hogwarts. The only magic you'll be practicing is pulling a paper out of your ass two hours before it's due]

Hedgehog: I'm a little bit worried about it. [I don't want to move out of my house and live somewhere else away from you and daddy and my toys and my hamster and the fairy canopy over my bed]

Mama: Hedgehog, it's a long long time from now, and I promise it's really exciting [and kind of awful] and besides, if you like, there are really good universities in NYC and you could live at home and go to school on the subway. [actually, daddy and I plan on home-colleging you. There's no fucking way we're ever letting you leave home. Even if you beg, which believe me you will]

Shaken, Not Stirred

The other evening I had the pleasure of hanging at a wonderful grown-ups-and-children party of our dear friends, a 007 party for a turning-8-year-old. The children were given real cocktail shakers for special favors, and shown how to shake a virgin fruit-juice cocktail, and they drank and went on elaborate spy missions and played roulette while their elders had real cocktails, shaken not stirred, and ate dozens of tiny delicate delicious blinis and got tanked. There was so much laughter and good feeling all around, it was just so delicious and my Texas-worn soul is now healed again, with a couple of vodka martinis and a little love.

It did point up the fact that an occasional cocktail hour has been missing from my life...

My grandparents, even with all their flaws, knew the value of a good weekly cocktail party, where grown-ups could eat salted nuts and overindulge in liquor and smoke the cigarettes presented graciously in fine china cigarette cups and pass off-color remarks to their hearts' content, winkwink nudgenudge. The children passed the trays of hors d'oeuvres, had their cheeks pinched, and then went off to fend for themselves. That generation knew the value of a good conversation. They could hardly be called drab. I'm sure when they were in their cups, they made passes at each other, they argued about books they'd read.

I'm inspired to resurrect this tradition. It just couldn't be a bad thing, could it?

If you like, tell me your favorite cocktail.



p.s. while I'm on the subject of friendly gatherings, I just wanted to thank everyone for all the kind words during my hideous Texas sojourn. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of your response to my piteous whinging!

*photo, "Martini Time" by wickenden, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Gravity

Earth pulls us earth-ward. There is no doubt about this.

A new bicycle was waiting for Hedgehog in Texas--her first without training wheels.

I watched her father, gentle hand on her back, helping her steady. I watched her effort on the tough pedals. I watched her go...

Earth pulled her earth-ward, and she was up again. Earth pulled her earth-ward, and she was up again.

Determined, stoical in her Hedgehog way, we watched, amazed at her lightness, as she conquered the pull and captured an airy balance...

...and pedalled and pedalled...

...and was off...

Little Egg

Every woman is born with all her eggs. This means that in a sense my daughter was born with me; that I spent my whole life carrying her, before I even knew she was a possibility. When I think of my whole long life before she came, and I feel strangely lonely, it makes me feel better now, in retrospect, to think that she was always there, waiting with me, for her dad to make her complete.

And when my daughter was born into the world outside, still and for a long time after sheltered in the paradox of the temporary, delicate, and durable egg--I could protect her and keep her to myself, from the dangers, judgments, and heartbreaks--but of course she is pecking her way out and that is as it should be--

goodbye little egg

Kiss Tag Boy Crazy

A new development in 8-year-old Hedgehog's development--notice how blithely I trip from the total psychic meltdown of previous post, to lighthearted musings--made itself known last Saturday.

One of Hedgie's very best friends is a boy, I'll call him Hector, a marvelous charismatic little boy I believe I've spoken of before--he's naughty, rip-roaringly funny, and so kind with Hedgie, and he's an intellectual powerhouse, perfectly matched in his wide-ranging and obscure interests and little obsessions to her own idiosyncratic way of being in the world.

Last week, Hedgie and I were talking about crushes--who had one on whom in her class, among her friends. I asked--probably I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist--"do you have any crushes going right now Hedgie?" She told me she had a crush on Hector. "Really?" I asked. "Do you think there's a difference between having a crush and being good friends?" "Yes," she replied. "There is a difference. But in Hector's case, I have a crush and a friendship. You know, I think he's really handsome."

Ah. Well, Hector is a handsome little boy. And, even more compellingly, he has such a courtly manner with Hedgie--deferring to her wishes, letting her hold his hand as they walk down the street. Friendship and a crush--on such lucky happenstance are marriages built. I should know. But I didn't mention this to her.

Anyway...

Saturday mornings Hedgie, Hector, and their other dear friend Nicole attend Tae Kwan Do classes, after which we all retire to the charming local cafe for Limonata, Whoopie pies, lavish paninis, and other high-end gastronomic delights (which at this moment in time, I might add, I can ill afford, but I figure, hey--what's life for if not a Saturday afternoon guilt-free indulgence...). The children take their own table and spend a nice hour discussing Lord knows what--they seem so sophisticated and well-behaved, until the moment when, suddenly, they aren't. We parents joke that that moment comes unbidden--and then they must be set free poste-haste, before chaos descends on the quiet little bistro--the three children bum-rush the door and crowd through it comically shoving--bursting forth wildly into the sunshine and fresh air like they'd just spent a month chained in the dankest of dungeons.

Usually, their reclaimed freedom is expressed in unstructured running, up and down the block, until they are winded. Last Saturday, though, one of the children called out "Kiss tag!!!!!" and of one accord they began a new--ominously new--game of, well, kiss tag. I needn't elaborate, I'm sure. Hector pursued the girls, who stayed a step ahead, shrieking, until they allowed themselves to be caught and kissed. Over and over, until it was decided that there would no longer be a "base" and so all bets were off. Screaming, catching, exaggerated smooching on cheeks.

The parents--well, we weren't sure what exactly to do. We were trying not to laugh, trying not to watch, trying to chat idly about other things.

I wonder what Hedgie will be like as she gets older. Will she be boy-crazy like me? I was, am, and always will be absolutely stark-raving boy-crazy, I know, I know, I've said it before. Even now I am, as boy crazy as a happily-faithfully-married woman can be. It's a joke in our household--Hedgie's aunt, my sis, is always warning Hedgie "don't be boy-crazy like your mama!" Hedgie always laughs.

I'm alarmed, but amused, but resigned to the inevitability of it all, but resistant--a kiss--so innocently given and taken--but still, watching my girl laughingly running away, and then letting him catch her--

Naughty

Hedgehog has a very bad little boy in her second grade classroom, we'll just call him Sam. Sam is much reviled around Chez Weatherinthestreets; he teases, he pushes, one must go in to see the teachers about him sometimes even, and I know he's their Number One problem. They actually seem a bit unsure about how to handle this little wretch. But despite the very real problems with Sam, Hedgie is a secret fan of bad behavior. Part of this ill-concealed glee comes from the fact that she herself is incredibly well-behaved in school. If I were to psychoanalyze, I would say that she gets a vicarious thrill out of others acting out their Id when she herself is tightly governed by her Superego. But I won't get too Freudian here.

Or maybe I will. On our walk home from school this afternoon, Hedgie was bursting to tell me a story: in art class, when they were supposed to be creating little figures of some sort out of clay, Sam took advantage of a distracted art teacher. "Mama," Hedgie was actually bouncing along the street with laughter and excitement. "Sam made a clay penis! And then he glued it to the front of his pants and marched around the room showing it off!"

My reaction? I burst out laughing. How fabulous! I even said that to her. I asked Hedgie what the teacher did, and she said, "scolded loudly!" and I said I wasn't sure that it was deserving of a scolding. I told her that I didn't really think it was wrong to talk about penises or even to make a clay model of one.

But Hedgie, even in her delight, was still sensible. She reminded me that it was all about context. "Talking about penises in school would definitely be okay if we happened to be studying the human body," she said firmly. And making a clay penis? "That's okay too, but not to parade around and disrupt the class."

I had to concede the point.

Rites of Passage

I'm off one existential topic, and on to another. I've been thinking about rites of passage in a girl's life. The big ones, like being Bat Mitzvahed and losing your virginity, and the little ones, first high heels (black Capezio Character shoes, mary janes with modest little kitten heels), first lip gloss (Maybelline soft pink sparkle), first birth control pill prescription, first crush, first kiss, first dance, first bra, first Daisy shaver, first perfume...well, maybe not in that order...

Today after school, Hedgie got her ears pierced. On her way out of her school building, she was swarmed with earring-less friends, calling "good luck" and "you're sooooo lucky!" as we went. I was a bit trepidatious--was it sterile (eh, close enough, the studs came from a steri-pack and there was a great deal of alcohol involved, including the wine I drank beforehand, better than me sticking a sewing needle in there, anyway), was it even, was it too soon--but we went ahead anyway. It took a flat two minutes all told, and there she is, two tiny green stones sparkling at her tiny lobes, looking still, thank God, like a little girl. A little girl with one rite of passage behind her; many many more to come.

Thankful for My Daughter

On a Dust Taken Road by the Sea

On a dust taken road
on a long plundered day
I will find you here
where the sea gives away
in a dappled dell beside the sea
you and me are there
where the tide gives way
and the seagulls call
in a melodic stray
the ocean is as
clear as you and me.


--Hedgehog, Spring 2008

Thankful for My Daughter's Tae Kwan Do Master

Yes, I'm thankful for him. He has been an unexpected blessing in our lives. A wonderful, soulful man, who since meeting Hedgehog last spring has brought a sturdy, steady light into all our lives. So much more than just an instructor, he teaches kindness, discipline, generosity, and grace of spirit and body. He has become a role model for all three of us.

Just yesterday, I spilled some coffee in the beautifully appointed waiting room of the dojo. As I was down on my knees, blotting up his lovely mat, in my usual housewifely position and a bit embarrassed, he laughed and told me he'd put the outdoor mat indoors for just such occasions. I stood, and rolled my eyes in my jokily complaining way, saying, "ech, this is my life, forever blotting up carpets..." and he smiled and, not looking at me, said gently "you have a wonderful life."

It was not a reprimand, not confrontational, said in his sweet way, but with certitude; he really meant it. So what could I do but agree? I don't always feel that way, but I'll try to remind myself of his words when I feel down...

Thank you, Tae Kwan Do Master.

Fields of Athenry

Today I'm thankful for favorite family songs and long-lived romance...

I'm thankful for Hedgehog's little piping voice singing along while Sarge plays "Fields of Athenry" on his guitar.

I'm thankful that both Sarge and Hedgehog love to dissect and discuss song lyrics with me.

I'm thankful that after all these years, I still love a slow dance with Sarge, to "Misty Morning, Albert Bridge" or "Dixieland Delight."