For no particular reason, while standing at the top of the stairs, I suddenly remembered it was Harry Potter's Birthday. I noted it to Mariah and we shared a spontaneous Harry Potter birthday handshake.
I don't know why shaking hands seemed like the best thing to do. But it did at the time.
Happy 28th Harry!
Yesterday we drove to The City because it was Saturday and beautiful and because Cam promised to show us around his city if ever we came for a visit. Getting out the door, there was some small todo about wardrobe; Auntie Lynne couldn't find her new hat, Becky wouldn't wear her pink dress, but we finally piled into the Merc: Mariah, Becky, Aunt Lynne and me- off for a little touristing, a quick bite to eat and Kate's concert that evening.
I should have payed more attention when Auntie Lynne handed me a black blouse to bring "in case Cam dresses up too. Though I guess you two can go cazh together." But I couldn't imagine Kate's concert was a formal sort of thing and I felt plenty dressed up for that in loose khakis, a cute knit top and my favorite slip on sneakers. I had intended to iron my pants, but I opted to wash my hair instead—what more can you ask for on a lazy July morning?
Cam lives in a neat mid-century modern house overlooking the Pacific. The hills in San Francisco are such that every three block offers some amazing view, but as Cam led us out to his back porch, I gasped at the picture-postcard he wakes up to every morning: The fog had cleared for an unusually clear day and the checkerboard of colorful rooftops spread across the mid-summer green of hills rippling down to the ocean. Church spires marked some cathedral in the distance and wooded hills to the south cradled the scene.
I think I could have snapped a couple pictures there and called it a day, but you can't visit SanFran without a drive through the Presidio, pictures in front of The Bridge, a walk down Pier 39, and a stopandgo drive around China Town. The Golden Gate bridge was breathtakingly beautiful with the flakes of sailboats scattered below and the hazy hills of the continent rising out of the dark bay on the other side. But even that picture seemed ordinary after Cam's backyard view. We did visit a stunning church in the Italian district; just in time to wish some newlyweds goodbye, admire the intricate architecture and slip out before the next bride and groom arrived. But by then it was 4 o'clock and time for tea.
And I finally understood the hat, pink dress and the black blouse. Four o'clock is teatime at the Ritz Carlton, which is, of course, the only place to go if you're out and about in SanFran on a hot Saturday afternoon.
Valet parking, brocade couches and me in my favorite sneakers, sipping peppermint tea—onesugarandcream. Of course I declined the salmon caviar sandwiches for the vegetarian tea of eggplant pesto on rye, and bell-pepper-cream on crackers. And scones with clotted cream, little biscuits and dainty pastries with jam from tiny jars. Naturally, a woman with long wavy hair played the harp in the background—a selection of Disney classics for the table of little girls wearing pretty dresses and swinging their legs. The five of us sat primly and gossiped (about ourselves, who else?) and tried to act posh. Just a few friends up for a day in The City.
And me in my favorite sneakers.
This one's for Jo.
I see now that I've oversimplified the thing. Mommying I mean. With all due humility, I confess I've been foolish and naïve. A few years of changing diapers is hardly qualification. Of course this too will be foolishness in years to come, when I have some. Kids of my own, of course.
But this summer's been good preschool for the degree no one is ever awarded— you never graduate from being Mom. You just have tests all the time, 24-7 homework and laundry to do besides. Textbooks are hard to come by, and the study group is just you and Dad. Course objectives? I think I'll start with keeping the little darlings alive: Mark crashed his bike and Cal cut open his food, I stopped Ava from eating paint today and four-year-old Tommy from jumping in the pool. I'm sure my own children will be at least that creative.
But then I have to wonder, am I protector first or teacher? Maybe a little paint would do Ava good. Do I make their beds because I love them or do I love them enough to teach them to? If I just fought the TV-battle and the homework-battle and the jumping-off-the-garage-roof-battle, should I really ask him to pick up his socks right this minute? Should I ask an hysterical child to say her bedtime prayers? Is time-out really for his good, or should I be the one sitting in my room?
There are no answers yet, really. Even kids know "maybe" means you weren't listening. Or it means you're lying and "no".
So I just have questions but what more can you bring with you to the beginning of a new school?
I think mothering is the closest mankind will get to manipulating the timespace continuum. Not like I know, but Mr. & Mrs. InHawaiiForaWeek are loaning me their six children, and three dimensions just aren't enough to contain these little kids: Two-year-old Sandy runs on rocket fuel I’m convinced, and it takes all the running you can do just to keep up with her. Mark is seven and talks at the pace of a tree growing, but you must stand still and listen; he only talks slow and knows if you’re not paying him mind. Try listening to him closely, while catching Sandy as she streaks out the back door. And Mia has her own four-year-old speed, sort of sluggish between the hours of 7 and 1, but then like some supernova she explodes (about the time she should take a nap).
You can try to dole out your time as you like: 18 minutes to boil noodles, 13 minutes to load the car, 38 minutes to run the wash, but you have to measure out enough time to loose gallantly at cards to Kali, who’s ten. And listen to Mark, Gregory and Mia all relate the story of the April Fools Prank. And get milk for Kali, water for Sandy, no ice for Mark, sippy cup for Mia, and the phone is ringing for Bradly, turn off the movie, sweep the floors (again?), push their swings, wash the dishes, turn off the TV, change the diaper, preheat the oven, phone’s ringing, someone spilled! can I eat this? help me say please no thank you stop pool park dinner dishes, empty the trash, water the geraniums, and imagine—I still have time to read (after Goodnight Moon, Little Bear, Hop on Pop OnefishtwofishFancyNancySleepingbeautyblueberriesforsal) my book.
"Are you mawwied?"
"Nope, not yet."
"Oh yeah, 'cause you have wittle dots awl over your face... Fle- Fwwweckles."
My boys finally tired of Pirates after two months of walking the plank and avasting ye lubbards in the back yard. I suppose two months is a long time when you're three and four years old, and it had now lost it's scurvy charm, as had hide-and-go-seek, duckduckgoose, and bubble wands. When I wouldn't let them watch the Backyardigans ("But you never let us watch kids shows and i just wanna watch TV all day!") Tyrannosaurus Caden decided it was high time I was dismembered or at least severely disfigured. Luckily I learned my dinoskills from the Velociraptor Master Morgan Gibbons, so I gave a jurassic squawk and hoisted my assassin onto the couch. Needless to say, the T. Rex was no match for my tickling claws.
Cal, once his older brother was incapacitated with giggles, leaped from the coffee table like some sabertooth spider monkey. He landed on me, and more tickling ensued. Caden burrowed under the cushions in escape, and, burying the monkey under floral print pillows, I flapped my wings and stated after my escaping prey. It was halfway around the dining room table, mid raptor leap and squawk, that I became suddenly very aware of life. At which point I started laughing. My life is completely ridiculous sometimes.
"Hey! Chase me! Dinosaurs don't just laugh!"
Oh excuse me. "Squawk!"
I keep a notebook full of the ways I see God in my life each day. Some entries relate His nature's beauty, some His encouraging trials, all describe the tender mercy of my God who never forgets me.
Yesterday He gave me rain. Rain in torrents that veiled the windows and littered the forest's leaves to its floor. Lightening that lit up the sky more beautifully than any fireworks show. Thunder that rumbled like the deep breathing of the earth itself; I had forgotten the way thunder jostles the air and ripples through you- tangible.
Mrs. Lobauch let me sit on her porch to watch the heavens empty on her sodden Carolina forest. My parents sat inside to chat, but I sat in a stiff deck chair and let the heavy wet air embraced me. Here I breathed in thick breaths of my favorite air on earth.
This morning smelled like the sweet wet of a Carolina summer storm. This is the smell of home. They pray for rain here to water their summer-parched earth. I pray to thank God for His rain that watered my desert-parched soul.
34.479 N
77.445 W
Seriously.
If you can find it, we'll even let you keep it.
Uncle Greg buried it for the little kids on Tuesday, but their pirate-y treasure-finding skills were no match for his pirate-y burying skills. Actually, everyone looked for it. And it's still safely buried.
Looks like this round goes to Cap'n Greg.
Fourth of July at the beach is the coconut smell of sunscreen, sand in your ears (and nose, eyes and hair), Grandma's giant bucket of licorice, and most of all my daddy's sandcastles. In our backyard we build tree forts, and on graph paper he sketches space stations, but on the Carolina coastline he turns sand into towers, walls and palaces: a fortress for an afternoon.
He started after breakfast. With the shovel and a few buckets-- "see, we'll carve out a channel here and the water'll sort of wash out to a delta over there... this hole we'll dig down to the water table and the moat can drain into here..."
A bridge, a tunnel, two fortresses with access roads, a giant hill in the dry moat-lake, and towers of drip castles on every level. Daddy took a lunch break, but just for a bit; low tide is the very best time for building.
He looked a bit like a kid out there, kneeling in the middle of his piles of sand, patting down the walls, and dribbling up the towers. I built up the battlements, the guard hills and towers. Jack got knighted Head Castle Protector and helped dig out the moat. Sussy 
and Brigham picked shells for decoration and the neighbors came by to stare.
"Will it be there tomorrow?" the little boy asked.
"We'll see." said his dad.
"Not a chance." I promised.
About dinner time the tide rolled in, just like it always will, and we finally stood back from our masterpiece and watched it slowly melt. 
"You know, I was thinking we should've set up a camera and made stop-motion clips of it washing out."
"I was thinking the same thing! But we should show the whole thing build up first and then wash out."
"There goes the first bridge!"
"Yeah, didn't expect that one to last long"
Daddy chuckled, "Nothing's supposed to last long— it is a sandcastle."
The Ocean entices too many off the creative brink called Poetry, like some siren song seducing every vacationer's pen. It is glorious to see the horizon curve around, full to the brim with greyblue. And the gangly seabirds that peck in the surf simply beg to be likened to something. Perhaps it's the early sunlight: blinding pink to the east, stretching my lanky shadow to the west. But I'm determined not to compose another beached whale of clichés. In fact, I'd rather just sit, still. Left well enough alone, the Ocean is its own poetry.
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