dismembered constellations
June 29, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
we got a wading pool after an afternoon of bickering, splashing, and sunburning (through layers of sunscreen. jude, why are you so white?) at aunt janell’s house that ended in exhausted children who went to sleep easily, dreaming of water and blue sky.
“i hope it doesn’t rain today,” henry says. “it won’t, look at the blue sky everywhere,” i say. “look at the sky blue sky,” he says. cooler than we could have created ourselves, this boy.
our wading pool sits in a very shady spot in the yard that is, due to shade and generations of slovenly yard-keepers, extraordinarily muddy. i try not to be annoyed at the playing process that comes with location and boyhood immaturity. self-control that is neccessary for the rinsing off of feet after a run through the squalor is hard to come by when enthusiasm grows golden in hair, skin, lips, fingers tipsy. i hate it when they fight about it all: “i’m cold, don’t splash me,” “jude! stop spraying me!” “mom, henry is getting me wet.” annoying at best. it doesn’t help that i have to sit there for the duration to keep them from drowning or otherwise killing each other with sticks and flinging mud-slicked rocks. the screams that come from our yard as one is mixing dirt and grass into water and another is creating waves impossible with so little water tell everyone that we are there, having some kind of fun that can be found in teasing, harrassment, ordinary meanness. exhausting. today they can play the way they used to play, before i thought it would be nice to have a wading pool to shellac the hot part of the afternoon.
cagefighter, starla, kick to the face while wearing these bad-boys
June 23, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
late last night (maybe not so late, the day feeling long with the light) ernie was watching some kind of fake wrestling show with toothy men in little shiny plastic shorts and tall boots smack each other down with open palms and pointed elbows. one had giant teeth to flaunt and ernie said that this one would win because he was the one who was knocked down and slammed into the most in the beginning. it was a tag-team wrestling match, the tagging they could have worked on acting-wise, as well as the fake slapping (why can i see that cheering woman in the audience when i should be seeing nothing but fist to cheek?). the man in red from head to toe was especially bad at pretending to make contact. the old man with horribly dyed blonde hair was good, his long career in the sport paying off as we watched. the man with the teeth, the supposed underdog, the one who had hair like my brother had before he cut it off to get a new job only to learn that he could have worn a hairnet, this one waived a golden belt in the air and howled at the moon, the champion. such lousy acting and horrible costuming and relative hideousness, we were entertained by it (i only somewhat as i was distracted as i flipped through the latest about european vacation places that are family friendly, ways to pitch tents of all kinds for star gazers in the backyard and where to find white ceramic tea service for little hands) and others most certainly were entertained by it, paying for tickets to sit close enough for sweat and glitter. there’s something about watching someone get slapped or kicked or smashed by another person that entertains us. maybe it’s because it’s so totally unacceptable to do that to another person ourselves that we get satisfaction from watching it in “acceptable” ways.
the rain has stopped. it’s hot and sunny, everything green and tall. the fans blow hot hair through the house all day as we wait for nightfall and all that comes with it: boys that don’t move arms and legs (that grow longer), silence, the cat, surgically tamed, now, lying still on the floor instead of attacking every flex of toe, cicadas in the thick pecan trees, late night talking in the dark and cool of the yard, the distant smells of tobacco, tomato leaf, night twisting together and sailing starward.
it’s summer now, the way a summer should be, the hose muddying puddle places each afternoon, sunhats, the white noises of the fans from room to room, popsicles in the freezer, along with cans of limeade for long sour sipping.
“remembering the names of the constellations”
June 14, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
the drive home was long, going late into a night sky streaked in pink and green. the boys slept, henry trying to wrap his brain electric around the idea that sleeping will pass the time in a better way, that when he wakes up in the morning he will be in his house with all of his things in the messy messes that he left them in, waiting to be cleaned up and put away.
my dearest husband, the one that continues to surprise me with his golden, his platinum terrificness, was supposed to be finishing the work in his studio while there were no pick-pocketing helpers underfoot, while there was no wife to chatter at him non-stop from the corner of the room. instead he did all of those things in the house that we had talked about doing, things like the ripping out of carpet, the kitchen exploration of what was under the crummy linoleum (very crummy tile) and what was under the very crummy tile (honey hard woods like the rest of the house!), and the scraping and sanding and shining of the wood. perhaps best of all, he also worked and sanded and painted the bathroom that started out a garish stripage who screamed I’M TURQUOISE, I’M FLORAL every time you even thought that you had to pee.
hooray for ernie! such a lucky girl am i. such a good secret keeper is he. i came in the house at 2:30, sleeping babe (hardly a baby now with long legs and wit to match) in arms to find these surprises and had a ridiculous time falling asleep as henry and ernie snored in unison. i’m also having an embarrassingly good time cleaning the house, particularly moving the cat’s bowls, vacuuming the kitchen floor, and returning the bowls to their places.
“remembering the names of the constellations”
June 14, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
the drive home was long, going late into a night sky streaked in pink and green. the boys slept, henry trying to wrap his brain electric around the idea that sleeping will pass the time in a better way, that when he wakes up in the morning he will be in his house with all of his things in the messy messes that he left them in, waiting to be cleaned up and put away.
my dearest husband, the one that continues to surprise me with his golden, his platinum terrificness, was supposed to be finishing the work in his studio while there were no pick-pocketing helpers underfoot, while there was no wife to chatter at him non-stop from the corner of the room. instead he did all of those things in the house that we had talked about doing, things like the ripping out of carpet, the kitchen exploration of what was under the crummy linoleum (very crummy tile) and what was under the very crummy tile (honey hard woods like the rest of the house!), and the scraping and sanding and shining of the wood. perhaps best of all, he also worked and sanded and painted the bathroom that started out a garish stripage who screamed I’M TURQUOISE, I’M FLORAL every time you even thought that you had to pee.
hooray for ernie! such a lucky girl am i. such a good secret keeper is he. i came in the house at 2:30, sleeping babe (hardly a baby now with long legs and wit to match) in arms to find these surprises and had a ridiculous time falling asleep as henry and ernie snored in unison. i’m also having an embarrassingly good time cleaning the house, particularly moving the cat’s bowls, vacuuming the kitchen floor, and returning the bowls to their places.
three
June 7, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
jude was born early, five weeks and days, scaring us all because of the day, because of blood and emergency. i wish i could say that i wasn’t sitting on my mother’s couch watching “win a date with tad hamilton” when the whole thing went down.
jude was pink and had soft white hair on his head. tiny, perfect. the neonatologist came to be sure. it was sunday and the room was white and shining. i was saying silly things to the man with needles and clear bubbleless drugs and couldn’t feel my legs. the doctor came close enough to kiss, his glasses shining and magnifying, and told me that jude was perfect, all would be well.
today jude talks with great vocabulary, the dictionary under his gold-spinning hair, behind his freckles and the blue of his eyes, growing from checklist to pamphlet to an inches-thick hardcover first edition. he smiles and the world is sunshine. thank you, jude, for all that you are.
ernie drove through the tuesday night to be here with us, sleeping in the car after staying awake through mountains and the long stretch of road through ohio, indiana. he plays, he naps, when it is no longer possible to contain ourselves we wake him up. it’s good to have all pieces of us together again.
my mother makes cupcakes. we wrap presents and things that are new but aren’t presents, like handwriting paper and pencils for henry (!). new whoopee cushions that need to be explained to old grandma who shows much confusion throughout many demonstrations and even overly explicit explanations. i wish we had been videotaping. rifles, cars of all kinds, games, things to open. most birthday budgeting was suggested to be given to the swing-set fund. hooray for multitudinous family members.
we stay in illinois until sunday and head back through the flat cornscape, over and under hill, across water, music ticking away the seconds. kindermusik classes start on monday.
more reasons to knit sweaters for boys, sons
June 5, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
as though we really needed them, in a recent article mental floss magazine gives us 15 reasons to love mr. rogers. it’s not enough that he keeps that fish tank so freaking clean.
(no. 15)
mysteriously, henry and i (happily, jude is not much into the television yet, lightning mcqueen notwithstanding) both have never been able to get into “having some make-believe” along with those soggy looking puppets. it’s the experiences we’re after, methinks.
hats tipsy to head and shoulders (and all that) and kindermusik of holland.
five alive
June 4, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
henry is five, turning such overnight, his mother waking shortly after two in the morning without planning to do so, touching his hair and kissing his sleeping mouth. “i’m five and i can read,” he says. “i can read ‘Sam’ and ‘Sam sat’ and ‘Sam has an ax.’” he is gleeful about the new discovery of letters stringing together into words mysterious. gleeful because he is not sitting at the table, skull and crossbone pencil in his left hand, i beside him, pointing at letters and sounds as i, although i try to stop myself, use a teach-y voice and know i am annoying.
he is five, the first birthday that seems to matter, the one that represents for certain the closets of his memory, doors ajar, lining up along a hallway for recollection fifty years from now, when my memory or life is gone and he no longer is a swinger of swords, branches. i remember being five, bruised and dirty from days and weeks consecutive of green hours outdoors.
we celebrated his birthday mildly on the 29th, since the boys and i are in illinois eating too much, the slurp and drip of popsicles under the breezing of the trees over the deck, and ernie is still at home with the cat, the work, the quiet. henry and i went to farm king where he picked out a birthday present for the day, something he calls his “set-up” which includes belt, buckle, sturdy holsters, shining pistols. farm king is good for this kind of thing. he ate ice cream with me on a date, sitting on the same side of the booth with me, asking me not to chatter at him while he was trying to eat. this must be why he never spills or makes a mess while eating. he chooses chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting and sprinkles and blue candles for his cupcakes. we sing to him. he is five with little fanfare, it seems, but he understands the party of the week to come when poppy will be here and presents will come in paper to tear.
i hear trumpets, trombones, the low hum of a tuba, though, and smile at him throughout the day. you are a wonder, dearest henry. thank you for bringing all that you bring to my life.
