april come she will… may, she will stay
April 30, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
some of this
a little of this
and a lot of this….
and something has to give: this blog! come tomorrow, the first of may (may!? how can it be?), i’ll be trying to blog every day…. i’ve got lists and links and a few new haiku, for you.
win something, or lose something
April 14, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
i wanted all of you to know that there’s a royal buffet giveaway over on the nature manipulated blog! follow the instructions to enter the drawing for a butterfly quicksilver mobile and a miniature party pennant garland. hooray!
you really should, while you’re over there, subscribe to the nature manipulated feed because she hosts giveaways all the time! i myself NEVER win the giveaways in which i enter. i’m unlucky in that way. sometimes i see something and just know that this time i will win in, but, alas, it is not to be.
it was sunny late in the day, after a morning and more of rain. we ran from the house the moment the yard turned yellow and green. there was great rejoicing in the car because the windows were down and the sunroof was open. later they were crabby and tired from being up too early. i looked straight on ahead until morning. with deep breaths, a quiet voice, and a smile (and jeopardy), bedtime without ernie was like a dream, sailing away with the last streaks of pink seen from the corner of the window.
quickly, now
April 12, 2009 | Filed Under extraordinary | 3 Comments
go tell his disciples that Jesus Christ is no longer dead!
endings, beginnings
April 8, 2009 | Filed Under extraordinary, familial | 3 Comments
henry fades to sleep, the deep pull of his breath telling me that i can slip away for the night, for LOST, for the cutting of another hundred butterflies. before that, jude, lola, both asleep before i have to read that stack of books i told jude we’d read once lola drifted off. it’s good to be a mother who knows that he will sleep before she does. before that, quick baths, to wash away the water of the lake from their feet, the sprinkles of it from their faces and hair. before that, dinner, beans that they don’t really like, but eat, rice that they do like because it’s yellow. before that, an afternoon in sunshine, green peering out from everywhere, dogwoods the kind of white that pulls you inside and makes you forget. dogwoods not yet in bloom, their green leaves opening like cups waiting for the milk of them. sticks, many sticks, fights about sticks and with sticks. the mothers carry the sticks and everything else. we look for goslings foretold and find turtles on a fallen tree in the water, freckling their puzzled backs in the sun. the big one swims away and there is hollering. before this, i manage to find a clover, the four leafed kind. i feel lucky. ernie always finds them, no matter where he is, no matter how small the patch in the grass. before this, i attempt a handstand, before this the boys are wheelbarrows. before this i rummage in the car for two dollars in small change for the park, the state park for which we’ve already paid in taxes. minor grumbling and an attempt to pay with many pennies (tricky: the slot is too small for so fat an envelope). before this, starbucks. before this, a noodly lunch, the search for shoes, two black and blue, two skeletal, two butterflied, two orange, the donning of layers, the sheathing of swords that do not cause injury. before this, school with great resistance. earlier, the packaging of goods. earlier than this, the shower, always too short. before this, the first pull of coffee, also over too soon. before this, the bed, warm, cold at the pillow. before this, to dream. the dream? unremembered. probably of sunshine in streaks on the water, the white of a petal slipping off before me, the sky as blue as it has ever been and will also be again.
anew
April 7, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
at long last, a new computer! this means that i can actually use my camera (hurrah!), will no longer be given headaches by the flickering of the laptop i’ve been using since my last mini died, and the boys can visit the lego site and national geographic kids without having the computer explode. happiness throughout the house entire.
sea billows
April 6, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
a long week of grieving and celebrating last week as ernie’s mimi passed away. she was eighty. as expected as it was for her to die, it wasn’t easy. i still feel a bit teary, especially when i think of big daddy, who was hardly ever without her.
i don’t think i’ve been to a funeral for sixteen (?) years, the funeral for my grandpa, the one that lived nearby, the one with the garden, who let us pick the rhubarb, who let me sit on the back of his chair and braid the long strand of his hair that grew in the middle of his head. the other day i remembered how his hair smelled and felt in my hands, and that has been much longer than sixteen years ago. i’m glad for memories like this, smells and textures that stay with you and come back without warning.
the boys were amazing at the visitation and the funeral. i was a little nervous for them, they have had no experience with death at all. our kids are so sheltered from it all, in other countries, in other days, death is, was, not so far removed from life as it seems to be for us. they seem to understand, but how well can they, really? i don’t really understand any better than they do. jude noted that mimi didn’t look like herself because the sparkle was gone. oh, boy.
ernie wrote a nice tribute to his mimi on his blog. you can read it here. i myself am nearly without words. mimi was one of those people who was always there, always giving of herself without expecting anything in return. it doesn’t seem real that she’s not there, in her kitchen, wiping off her already very clean counters. she laughed at me when i asked her how to fry okra (northern girl that i am). she gave me recipes in a tidy looping script. she gave me an african violet in a special violet pot. she had the most amazing collection of african violets herself, which i remembered guiltily as the one she gave to me withered away. i don’t think i told her about that. when ernie asked me to marry him we went to mimi’s after and told her first. she laughed and gave me one of her delicate hugs. she had a little smile in her mouth, she always had that little smile when you talked to her. she came to my graduation and told me she was proud of me. she came to our wedding and she gave us our silverware. she let me pick it out because she knew that i’d want to do that.
oh, mimi. you were loved, you with your sparkle, your smile, your delicate hugs.