Eric bought a really fancy new camera, and once he stops throwing up, I'll have him take some new pics of me and the girls (you know, because the blog needs an update) and of the Chanin dress, which is pretty much finished.

In the meanwhile, I want to talk trees. How I love them, almost to the point of ridiculousness. Tree hugging and all that. Life-giving force and all that.

When my gram was sending down all those boxes of stuff last year, this little book was in one of them:

It's leather bound, and was published in 1920.  I got it out because I wanted to try to identify this magnificent beast, which presides over our backyard:

Sadly, Julia's book was of no help to me.  My best guess is elm, but I can't be sure (when M. is back in town, I bet she'll know).  But I was "leafing" through it anyway (ha!) and loved this little passage at the beginning:

Every one of us loves the sight of green things growing.  It is natural that trees, which are greatest in all the plant kingdom, should inspire in us the highest admiration.  Their terms of life so far outrun the puny human span!  They stand so high, and spread so far their sheltering arms!  We bless them for the gifts they bring to supply our bodily needs, and for their beauty, which feeds our souls!

I love that earnestness, and all those exclamation marks.  And, though her book isn't so helpful to my 2010 eyes, her sentiment remains right on, in my book.  When we first moved to this house, I just couldn't believe how lucky we were to have these great green beasts in our very own backyard.  I still can't.

Suck-O-Rama

I'm sorry to give you another pitiful post so close on the heels of that other pitiful post. But it's not my fault. I can't help it.

You see, the most hideous thing happened in our house last night. Which was, Eric and I both puking all night long and then having to look at each other in the morning and decide who was sicker and would take the kids to camp.

Now, this tanden sickness business makes me filled with hatred and dread. I think there is nothing worse in the category of non-emergency parenting dilemmas. Parenting when sick makes me meaner than swamp crotch.

I just made that up--that swamp crotch thing. Apparently I'm trying out some interesting writerly voice right now. Forgive me. I'm not myself.

My point is that there is nothing that makes me hate my life, my children, and my husband more than having to be a grown up when I'm sick. Because what is the USE of getting sick if you can't be a big, fat pitiful baby over it? If you can't loll in bed and watch tv and drink gatorade and eat saltines? What is the USE?

We ended up splitting the rides, both of us probably breaking a few laws getting each child to her respective camp for the day and then hauling ass back home to crawl back into bed. But we did it because that option was soooo much better than keeping them home and trying to entertain and parent them when we're rowlfing it up, you know?

I should be grateful the kids weren't sick too. I should be grateful that, for once in our marriage, Eric is actually sicker than I am.

That didn't sound right. It's just that you know me and the puking. Nine times out of ten I get dehydrated and end up in the stupid hospital.

I should be grateful I didn't blow out at the Y. I should be grateful we can afford camp and that I could lay on the couch and watch The Big Chill on TNT. And I should be grateful that I feel better now and that it wasn't something more serious.

But really, I don't feel grateful at all. I'm just not there yet. I don't have that particular bit of wisdom in my grasp. I feel like I deserve a freaking spa weekend in the mountains. I feel sad that we couldn't get it together enough to call someone for help. I'm feeling tired and overwhelmed and resentful.

And that's just what parenthood looks like today.

Suck.

I Heart Chanin

There were two things that got me started sewing a year and a half ago (now that's crazy. Feels like forever!). First was my grandmother sending me all those boxes of things--knitting needles and fabric and notions. Second was The Alabama Stitch Book, from Alabama Chanin.

Man, if you have the slightest interest in learning how to sew, or make gifts, or get started on your own clothing, Chanin is a great place to go. I started out making clothes out of old t-shirts with just a needle and a thread, sitting in the rocking chair of our former guest bedroom.

And look at me now! I'm making clothes out of old t-shirts with just a needle and thread. Except now I'm doing it in a big fancy room that I never want to leave.



This thing is going to take a while to finish, what with all the hand-sewing and everything. I'll post when it's done!

What?

I'm reviewing a book for the journal Technology and Culture. It's a good anthology, actually, and I will say so in my review. But there's one chapter that is just blowing my mind. And maybe in not such a good way. Here's an excerpt:

In a mapping of concepts from non-linear dynamics onto the theory of eigenorganizations, von Foerster visualizes the genesis of an autopoietic system as the contraction/condensation of a field of oeprational density around a specific point of 'strange attraction'.

That's a pretty typical sentence. Also, half of the chapter quotes directly from the German and doesn't translate.

I mean, come on.

I Love You Daddy

Father's Day is coming up (duh, Addie would say) and Nolie's class has been busy making gifts to celebrate. Each kid was asked to complete the sentence, "I Love You Daddy, because...." Here's how Nolie completed hers:



I'm sure, if I were to receive a similar present, it would say something like, "I love you, Mommy, because you make me eat vegetables and go to bed at a reasonable hour and not rot my brain with too much t.v."

Something fun like that, I bet.

The Crisp S

I took Addie to the Children's Hospital yesterday morning for a speech therapy evaluation. She's had trouble with her r's sounding like w's and with a pretty pronounced lisp, and the doctor thought it was probably time to get some help.

The Children's Hospital in Denver is beautiful--very colorful, with lots of cheerful art and play structures and wagons. But to go in there, you pretty much have to put on your emotional flak jacket and not look around too much, because your heart will break into about a thousand pieces, what with all those sick kids.

Yes, I'm a big wiener. Wimp. Civilian. So sue me.

Anyway, it was a weird appointment. Addie has been working on pronouncing her r's, and is getting better at them, and the specialist wasn't too worried about them. She did say she was two years too old to be having that lisp, though, which of course made me feel anxious--that old fear that there is this problem with our kid we haven't noticed and for God's sake where the hell have we been?

I beat back that particular anxiety just in time for the specialist to skooch me next door to a hidden spy room. There were headphones and a one-way mirror and everything, and I basically sat and spied on my kid while she got evaluated.

Awful. AWWWWWWWful.

My observations:

1) Addie is a sassy little thing. She bout ate that specialist (who was a bit on the sweet and gullible side) up for a snack.



2) Addie fidgets like she had ADHD pellets for breakfast.



3) Addie purposely mis-answers some questions to see if the evaluator catches it.



4) Addie is bored quickly and manipulates the specialist into letting her out for a) a bathroom break; b) a water break; and c) a reading break.



5) Addie is going to be just fine. I, on the other hand, need to chill the heck out. I was ridiculously anxious the whole time, watching my kid misbehave. Then I thought about what a scamp I was as a kid, got the giggles, and relaxed. As my friend N reminds me, "You really don't want to push for a perfect girl."

I realize it's creepy that I took these photos. I couldn't help it.

And we're not going back there, by the way, to the speech therapy. We're going to play "s"-flavored games at home and work on that lisp all by ourselves, for the meanwhile. I'll let you know what changes.

A Cheerful Thought on Despair

A new friend recently gifted me Sharon Salzberg's Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience. It's a short book, but it has taken me a while to read. It's got some wisdom in it, and I have to put it down and think about it every fes pages, since it takes me so long to absorb wisdom. I'm a fool for the wisdom, as you know.

Anyway, I got to this passage, on p. 100, last night. I wish I could transcribe the entire chapter for you here, I think it's so wonderful, but that'd be boring for all of us, and Sharon Salzberg would probably be bummed too, in her lovely Buddhist way.

She writes,

Doubt is usually considered to be the force that opposes faith. However, in my experience, doubt is an intrinsic part of genuine faith. I think the state of mind that is truly the opposite of faith is despair. Faith is the ability to offer our heart to the truth of what is happening, to see our experience as the embodiment of life's mystery, the present expression of possibility, the conduit connecting us to a bigger reality. When we feel torn away from connection and purpose, we can end up so caught in our state of mind that the whole world seems to exist in reference to our pain.

We may despair because someone disappoints us grievously, or annihilates us casually with their assumptions of who we are, and the world seems void of love. We may despair because someone else is treated so brutally that our sense of humanity is ripped apart. Or we ourselves may have behaved so badly that we cannot imagine every being redeemed from self-recrimination and regret.

...

When we despair, our most visceral torment is that we feel separate from everyone and everything around us, alone and on our own.

Holy shit, right? I mean for me, this was huge. It describes what I went through when my mom started to get sick again a while back: as if the rug had been pulled out from under me, that I was alone, that all of the practices and strategies and habits I had built up didn't matter at all. Faith was a sham.

But then the despair ebbed and flowed. I found its holes, was able to take breaks from its oppressiveness. And eventually it lessened, and my practices returned. I don't know if my faith is stronger now, necessarily, but it was a reminder that the pain wasn't as "monolithic" as it felt, and that it wouldn't take me over forever.

Whether I'll be able to remember that next time I encounter despair is another thing.