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A Work in Progress

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We Vermonters like to think that we’re good bouncing back from things, and, for the most part, we are.  We dig out of blizzards and muddy roads with aplomb, and most full-time Vermonters adapt their lifestyles and skill sets to survive the perpetually sluggish job market that is so characteristic of many rural areas.

But as Hurricane Sandy approached last week, and I watched the reaction of friends and coworkers and family, I realizee that as quickly as our infrastructure recovered from the wrath of then-Tropical Storm Irene, our psyches have not.

I work remotely, communicating with my coworkers in a private chatroom, and for the better part of two days, hurricane speculation and preparation dominated our conversations.  Irene had nearly washed away the home of one co-worker and endangered the families of others, and, even though our house and location had protected our family last year, I lived in a tornado-prone area for long enough to know that just because you were unscathed one storm, didn’t mean you wouldn’t get hit the next.  Memories of Irene-related evacuations and washouts even haunted our kids, and I saw worry on many young faces at home and around town.

In the end, Vermont held it together.  They made the needed plans, shifted schedules, and closed schools closed in anticipation of the potential need for shelters and reduced traffic.  And, in the end, Sandy spared Vermont the brunt of the damage.  It did remind me, however, that our neighbors to the south who were impacted by this storm will need our help as they rebuild their towns and infrastructure.  What they will need even more, however, is continued compassion for the wounds to their spirits that will remain long after roads and buildings are restored.

The One I Feed

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The kids each got their own snow/storm day this week as an elementary school closed one day at the beginning of and a middle school at the tail end of Tropical Storm Sandy.  It’s always a challenge trying to get work done when either kid is home, but when I have one or other of them alone, I try to take advantage of the situation and get some quality time.  That was how we ended up enjoying an impromptu breakfast at the infamous Round Table that occupies the back area of our local country store.  It was also how I had an unwanted encounter with an inner critic I’ve been trying to silence the last few months.

The Round Table is infamous because everyone in Arlington and Sandgate Vermont knows that on any given morning that table will be surrounded by it’s ‘Knights’.  Mostly male and often around retirement age, these loyal patrons are keen on sharing and hearing the latest opinions on everything from climate change to who’s doing what in local and federal government to the deer population.  Often loud but always good natured, the conversations are as popular as they are passionate, and I wasn’t sure if we would find an open seat.  However, the normal crowd seemed to be occupied with storm preparations, and we got lucky.

Thing2 and I grabbed a couple of breakfast sandwiches and sat down to eat and to listen.  There were only a few other visitors, and when they tired of storm speculations, one of our companions absently started thumbing through one of the Norman Rockwell calendars on the table (they are ubiquitous around this town) and the conversation turned to the life and work of this illustrator who once lived here.

Two of our companions, more interested in subjects of the paintings, discussed which local citizen had modeled for which painting and how some of the magazine covers captured the essence of Arlington, Vermont so well.  I’m of fan of his work on many levels, and though I tended to agree with them, I also tend to listen more when I eat at the Round Table.  Listening turned out to be the better part of valor as the visitor who had sparked the conversation, launched into a fairly unfavorable critiques of the artist’s subject matter.  His opinion of Rockwell’s technique was even less favorable, and as he dissected one of the illustrations in the calendar, I gleaned that the critic was a working artist himself.  Now I was even more determined to hold my tongue.

As Thing 2 and I ate, I silently thought of all the reasons I felt my companion was wrong, but knowing that he was a working artist, while I had only recently begun reviving my doodling skills made me doubt all those reasons.  That doubt began feeding a weakened inner critic, and as I gnawed at my sandwich, it began to gnaw at me.

“Maybe the reason you like this artist or that one is that you don’t know any better,” it whispered.  “Maybe your ham-fisted illustrations are the result of a sophomoric sense of art.  Maybe you should learn how to make iPhone apps instead of wasting your time on a blog that’s going to fizzle anyway.”

Thing2 and I finished our sandwiches, and I was relieved to get up from the table.  I hadn’t written all weekend, and guilt was making the inner critic stronger.  I knew my schedule would prevent any writing for a day or so, but where those lapses usually produce annoyance at my lack of organization, for a brief moment I wondered if it was just an admission that I wasn’t any good at my avocation.

As we stepped out into the bluster that was heralding the storm, it hit me.  It didn’t matter if I was good or not or if Rockwell was good or not.  Sticking to my guns and the doodling and the disclosing that is the heart of a blog is about feeding the soul.  And good or not, the more the soul is fed, the harder it is for the inner critic to feed off of my doubts or the comments of others.

Downstairs, Downstairs

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Last year we ditched our satellite dish in favor of a Roku.  We were tired of paying a huge monthly bill for a package full of channels we couldn’t watch with the kids, and most of our favorite shows were on Hulu or Netflix anyway.  One of my favorite aspects of Netfilx has been finding complete collections of old TV shows, and my latest guilty pleasure has been watching ‘Downton Abbey’ from end to end without waiting a week to see what happened.

I really love historic fiction, and I love the efforts the director and producers took with costumes and production when breathing life into their story of servants and their turn-of-the-last-century noble employers.  But, as the Big Guy reminded me, there was a predecessor to this series, and, as luck would have it, Netflix had it and I added it to my queue.

Upstairs, Downstairs first aired in the 1970s, and, while the costumes and sets were not nearly as painstakingly detailed and elaborate as its successors, but its simplicity sharpened the focus of this look at lives and livelihoods so completely determined by social class, and for some reason I couldn’t place right away I found myself hooked.  But, with the first few episodes playing out in the background as I was loading the last of the season harvest into the dehydrator, I began to suspect that one reason for the attraction was that our life is very much Downstairs, Downstairs with one significant difference.

The majority of the first show takes place downstairs, introducing us to the staff of an Edwardian house and to their newest member.  Each of the servants has their own degree of acceptance of the then current caste system, but what I found interesting was that whether or not a servant was portrayed as accepting of their status, without exception, they did except that their employers’ class was superior in every way.  That acceptance could be an expression of jealousy, resignation or ambition, but it was never questioned.

Now, I have come to accept that, absent a winning lottery ticket, our life will most likely be Downstairs, Downstairs for the duration.  Neither of us earns enough to find our way Upstairs.  But, even if we did hit the lottery, I’ve also come to realize that our material wants are pedestrian enough to ensure that  we will always be more comfortable having a wardrobe that consists of work jeans and good jeans for going out.  We will always be more comfortable in our unconventional house with its Early-American Garage Sale un-chic and its hodge-podge garden.  And we will always be more comfortable Downstairs.

Waiting to Exhale

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Thing2 – Cheese, as he wants to be called these days when he doesn’t want to be called SuperDude or SpiderMan – is six.  He’s been six for all of two weeks, but he seems to understand that, as his birthday approached, we were crossing a divide – at least when it came to our bedtime routine.

Cheese co-slept with us while he was nursing, and, when he transitioned to his own bunk in the room he now shares with Thing1, his 12-year-old brother, I adopted the practice of lying down with him at bed time.  I did this with Thing1 for a short time, and it seemed to smooth out the rough spots as he became more independent.  With Cheese, however, at least one of my reasons for this routine was selfish.

Thing1 is already taller than I am, and, while he still needs hugs and comforting when he’s down, I still marvel at how quickly he went from my arms to my lap and then to the world at large.  I know it is going even more quickly with Cheese, and when he embraces his independence, this special time will be gone forever.  The next epoch will be just as special, but our quiet time at night gives me the chance to be mindful of this one – of his arms around my neck and of the melting of a smiling imp into a serene slumbering angel.

As his birthday approached, however, our routine became more and more brief – he doesn’t need help getting ready for bed.  Increasingly the routine consists of Thing1 and Cheese giggling as they brush and wash and bustle into their bunks.  They whisper their secrets in the dark and then, more often than not, snoring replaces the giggles before I have a chance to sit down for a snuggle.

This is as it should be, but five is not six, and even six still needs a snuggle some nights.  As we move closer to the divide, however, even our snuggle time has changed.  The giggling does not stop merely because Mom is there.  Often I spend as much time shushing as snuggling, and it is always at bedtime that I get to hear the newest phrase Thing1 has acquired ‘on the playground’ before dutifully passing it on to his brother.

It was when the first phrase of the evening emanated from the top bunk last night that I realized that I was about to be relegated to a role on the sidelines of the bedtime routine.  Thing1 was already giggling when I kissed him goodnight, and the grin on Cheese’s face should have been a clear sign that my presence could only amplify the silliness.  I had just wrapped Cheese in a hug as the first classic line floated down from the top bed:

“Beans, Beans, the magical fru -”

“That’s enough,” I interrupted before Cheese could learn any new poetry.  But Thing1 began again, and I could feel Cheese beginning to quake.

I shushed.  They giggled.  I shushed again, and quiet reigned.  But not for long.  This time, the line was a whisper, and I found myself working not to chuckle.  Cheese held his hand over his mouth, and I knew even the hint of a giggle from me would send them both over the edge.  So I held my breath.

Thing1 knew it was time to quit, and for a few minutes I only heard an occasional squeak as he suppressed a laugh.  Cheese quickly lost his fight with sleep, and I was finally able to breathe without a giggle and without contributing to more chaos.

I stood up and gave Thing1 another kiss on the head before heading back to the living room for grown-up time.  But as I walked out to the bright kitchen, I exhaled again and my smile faded.  I knew that the boys had begun adopting their own routine, without my help.

There will be more silliness and snickering from the bunk room, and we’ll chuckle as we listen to their whispering. They will become more independent in this routine, just as they have become during the day.  They are both a long way from true independence, but we are at the end of an era, and I think I am already missing it.

Home Alone – Almost

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I like to think my writing group met today – even though the advance of Hurricane Sandy kept attendance down to two of us.  We even managed to speak of writing a little bit and even about the logistics of blogging.  In reality, our mini-meeting was just a little bit of a day with the girls, and it was just what this gal needed.

I’ve been part of a writing group for the last five or six months – Hubbard Hall, a local community theatre and arts center in Cambridge, NY.  Led by author Jon Katz, I initially came to the workshop with specific ideas about what I wanted to write and what I wanted to learn.  I hoped that the year-long experience would be my long-coveted MFA in writing.  It has turned out to be so much more than that for so many reasons, and today’s get together highlighted that once again.

From an educational standpoint, the Writer’s Project at Hubbard Hall has been an awakening for all of us.  No longer do I call myself a wannabe artist or writer.  I am now simply on a creative journey that will hopefully last a lifetime.  And, as I read the posts of my comrades, I see the same exuberant embrace of this ideal permeating our increasingly tight-knit group.

That small, eclectic group of writers is the other, completely unanticipated, aspect of this project.  Our first meeting was pleasant and friendly, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only attendee who worried that my work might not measure up.  In the course of the last few months, however, this creative collective has conjured its own special magic.  Wielding encouragement and hope, constructive critiques and glowing reviews, we banish anxiety and trepidation everyday online.  Today, two of our number sat at a kitchen table and compared notes and shared the histories of our creative lives,  and we banished it again.  

The rest of the group was sorely missed, and we’ll meet again another weekend with the entire crowd.  Assembling even the tiniest fraction of this group, however, was invaluable to me not only because it was a chance to talk about our work.  For me, it was the first grown-up, face-to-face social activity I’d had in over a week of chauffeuring children to doctor’s offices and pharmacies when I wasn’t working at or setting the kitchen table.  For me, the few stolen hours at that same table chatting and snacking with a new friend was just what the defense I needed against the dulling monotony that lurks at the corners of my very domestic life.  

Sympathy for the Mousers

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The second day into what should have been a one-day event, I have excavated and mouse-proofed every square inch of our pantry (at least it better be mouse proof).  I’m not one to go off the deep end (at least not when it comes to cleaning), but nothing irks me more than discovering evidence that the furry little freeloaders have managed to elude the cats and pilfer my pantry.

So as I excavated, I implemented every non-electric mouse trap and deterrent I could think of, and I began to feel a little like the Coyote planning and baiting his traps.  At first I giggled and pushed aside any worry that I am that nutty or obsessive in my pursuit of this prey, but as Thing 1 threatened to get a court order to stop my pantry-cleaning dance and the Big Guy volunteered to ferry Thing 2 to his play date, I started to wonder, are all these canisters and traps and deterrents a sign that I’m getting a little too close to the edge?

Or are they just a recognition that once in a while we should tip our hats to the rusticators of rodentia, the bad ol’ putty-tats, and admit that mousing is harder than it looks?

Yay Homework

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It’s Sunday, which means it’s homework day around our house.  Every Sunday night we make the same resolution that it will be done on Friday, and every Sunday night we’re standing over Thing 1 with a whip, making sure the forgotten paper or book gets done.  Not this Sunday, however.

It’s Thing 1’s turn to design for the time-honored Egg Drop project (in which each student designs a container that will safely carry an egg from the top of the school roof or bleachers to the ground below),   With hardly any egging on from us (sorry, couldn’t resist), my seventh grade sit-in enthusiast has been designing, and dropping and redesigning his entry.  The excitement on his face has is well-worth the cost of an egg (or two), and all weekend, I’ve been wondering why all homework can’t be like this.

I know some of it is to prepare them for the drudgery of independent learning in the “real” world called college.  But, today, watching him be a scientist makes me wonder if there is a way to breathe some new life in to other assignments so that they can be historians, or writers, or creators for a weekend.  And mostly so they can see on a daily basis what we mean when we say learning is exciting.

Keepin’ it in the Pantry

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This is the part in the Little House books where the kids joyfully pick up their aprons or tools and join their parents in the business of maintaining the homestead.

At our house the scene is a little different.  Thing 1 and Thin 2 have managed to stretch out breakfast at least 30 minutes longer than normal, somehow using telekinesis to restart the TV in the process.  All this is to avoid the stack of twenty-first century chores awaiting them.  The way I have to badger them to get wood stacked and room cleaned, you’d think I was violating child labor laws.  But today, I’m willing to risk it.

For me, it’s pantry-cleaning day.  My annual attempt at organization just before the flurry of fall company and winter snows make a chaotic larder not just inconvenient but dangerous.  During our desperate days my well-packed pantry was security, but (with the exception of last winter) having stocked shelves can literally be a life saver in a Vermont winter when roads are treacherous or even blocked.

I usually enjoy this job for all it foretells – holiday dinners, hot chocolate and popcorn on snowy days – but something primal (or spiteful, your call) in me does not cotton well to the sounds of sloth in the background.  So I badger and they move – slowly – and I hope that one of my pantry excavations will yield a jar of Dr. Pioneer’s Elbow Grease for kids.

Superdude

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I don’t remember this phase as a child, but both my boys have gone (and are going) through extended periods of interest in superheroes.  Thing 1 was into Superman in pre-K and Kindergarten, and then, in First Grade, he became obsessed with Spiderman.  His TV-viewing was pretty controlled (much more than Thing 2’s is – by virtue of living with an older brother), so his interest in these characters was curious.

Some of it had to come from friends’ toys and costumes, but I still couldn’t figure out the attraction. Was it the superpowers?  The flying? The web spinning?  So one Halloween as we were putting together another superhero costume, I asked Thing 1, “Why do you like  Spiderman so much?”

He was silent for a minute and then said, very seriously, “Because he saves people.”

Now six years later, Thing2 is in his superhero phase (like many of his male classmates), and I hear him express some of the same admiration for a superhero’s altruistic motivation.  But, while Thing2 is always sincere in his desire to help or save people from the bad guys, I have started to believe his alter-ego is working unconciously to save something equally as important as well – his inner superhero.

Always a free-spirit who marches not to his own drummer, but leads his own rhythm section, Thing2 was content to wear his inherited Superman and Spiderman costumes in their original form for a few weeks.  But, as his inner monologue evolved, so did the costumes, and I now call the resident savior at Minister Hill ‘SuperDude’.

He still sports the red and blue web-enhanced spidey-suit, but has since acquired a cape and boots and sequined glove (courtesy of a female cousin who has outgrown her dress-ups).  Somedays the uniform includes green goggles, and recently a rainbow wig of tightly-coiled curls has crowned the ensemble.  And with each addition to his costume, SuperDude acquires not only a new superpower – just yesterday I learned he could save all the electricity in the world by turning off a light switch – but his bouncing gait gets more joyous, and his spirit seems to fly a little higher.

There’s a seriousness that seems to overtake a lot kids when they get to grade school.  The change in expectations between Kindergarten and First Grade seems to begin opening their eyes to the sad fact that their carefree existence is not endless.  But when I watch SuperDude skidding around the kitchen table, searching for a new component for his costume, I know he is working very hard to ensure that Thing 2 doesn’t lose the ability to fly and leap and soar – if not through the air, at least through his own life.

Finding Our Groove

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Over the last few years, our family has been moving away from the orgy of spending and over-the-top revelry that has come to define the pre-pre-teen birthday party.  Poverty was a big help in our decision, but conversations with Thing 1 about his fondest birthday memories have confirmed our opinion that smaller celebrations may not only be cheaper, but more memorable.

So each year, we take Thing1 on a day trip to his favorite science museums, and now Thing2 is hitting an age when having a special day with the family trumps the excitement of staging a three ring circus in our yard.  Lately, his birthday celebration has taken the form of a weekend hike or activity with aunts and uncles and cousins, but this year, schedules and circumstances left the four of us to our devices.

Our search for something out-of-the-ordinary took us to Hubbard Hall, a local community arts center and our go-to source for all things creative and inspirational.  Donald Knaack, aka the Junkman was leading a workshop, on the surface anyway, on the fine art of turning trash into musical treasure.  By the end of the hour we realized he was teaching something much more.

There were only a few kids and parents there.  The kids were shy, and the parents were self-concious.  Most of us seemed to be under the impression, as I was, that we would watch the kids create and play.  But the Junkman had other plans.

We sat in a circle, each taking a piece of junk, and the Junkman began to talk about music, and rhythm, and life, and connecting to it through music.  The kids grew more enthusiastic as he talked, and the adults began to smile, as he reminded each of us of our connection to music.

Over the course of the next hour we whacked, and stomped, and clapped, absorbing his instructions until the playing became more than just rhythmic.  It became organic.  The beats and tones were spell-binding and breaking at once.  The Junkman encouraged us, banishing self-conciousness as we all began to embrace not just the rhythm but the idea that making music is as much about finding our groove and becoming part of it as it is about finding the perfect note.

Animation adventure

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Spent most of the day working on the drawings for my first animation in a while. Mostly just doodles and still working on the soundtrack, but every step towards the end of the storyboard gives me new respect for the people who pioneered this art.

Hope to have it done tomorrow sometime.

 

The Kitchen Table Trail

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Once upon a time, I was a comet. I flitted from job to job, person to person, and place to place. Most of the time I was not happy, but there are pieces of my journeys that don’t cause extreme discomfort when they intrude on my consciousness.  The funny thing was that, at the time anyway, I knew I was unhappy but never considered that floating aimlessly through space and life was the cause of the unhappiness.

Now, most days, I orbit our kitchen table.  I earn there.  I cook and clean there.   Often I create there.  And when I stop to look at my trail these days, I realize it’s a million miles from where I once thought I wanted to be.

I’m glad I had adventures – even if most of them were misadventures – as a young adult.  I don’t think I would appreciate the beauty of mundane family life in the same way if I hadn’t.  And, in the last few months, as I’ve participated in a writing workshop at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, NY, I’ve come to appreciate it in a new way.

When I first started this blog – writing about my domestic un-goddessness, I felt I had surrendered.  Our early group discussions had emphasized the value of finding stories close to our own lives, but everyone in our group seemed to be living much more interesting lives.  I still think they are in many ways, but I no longer see the search for stories in the low-grade domestic chaos that is my life as a work-at-home-mom as a cop-out.

Searching for my stories has made me infinitely more aware of other writers’ search for a bigger meaning in the mundane.     As I started writing about laundry half a dozen times (can I ever escape that?) I start to notice similar simple themes in books I once loved for their love stories or their settings.

Tolstoy once wrote, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Personally, I think most families are somewhere in between happy and unhappy and each in their own way.  However, I have come to believe that happy writers are all alike in that they have been lucky enough to find value the stories that are in someway close to their lives (and some of us have very active fantasy lives that hover invisibly over the kitchen table).  And in discovering the meaning of their stories, they begin to find a new meaning in their lives.  At least that’s how it is on the trail around my kitchen table.