Give Joy

I am a piranha, quick and effective. I am pulling Nigel in and out of the little Civic, dashing from store to store, checking items off my Christmas list, holding it all together, actually kind of getting an enjoyable rush out of buying gifts. Then I notice a sign that states simply, "Give Joy", and at first I think it says, "buy joy" which makes more sense plastered on the front door of Best Buy, until I look again and sure enough, it encourages me to "give joy." I've just bought a gift card there, scuttling in and out since the store kind of scares me with it's weird, dim lighting and the suppressed but overstimulated tension that lays heavily between the long isles of screaming hd dvd covers and overpriced(?) and undersized electronics.

so I have to wonder about this "giving joy" thing, of course I'm giving joy, aren't I? with buying the gift card, with making the effort to drag a child around, wait in line with grumpy customers and making small chat with the brisk sales people who like to pretend they are checking my id. I'm even signing my name on a computerized screen without ink. I'm probably saving an ink tree which more than makes up for the extra electricity it's taking to backlight that little box that is so hard to read, to understand.

I decide that the most joy I'm actually giving comes from dragging N, 6 months, around to all the stores. The elderly and the very young are enthralled with his red-cheeked face nestled down in his car seat. an older man squats down in the middle of Sears and has a one-sided conversation. "Aren't you going to talk to me today?" he asks? a 3 yr.-old named Calvin runs over to him in Starbuck's, looks up at me and yells, "what is it?" he follows N and me around, over to the cream station, his mom tries desperately to get him to say "goodbye" but instead he gives a maniacal grin.

Into the Wild

"Nature is not a place to visit, it is home . . . "

-Gary Snyder

so calling an overnight hike into the woods of PA a "jaunt into the wild" may not be entirely accurate. however, when the moonless sky becomes black as black and you can't hear anything but your own breathing, and your only source of heat is your own body on a cold night in November (below freezing) - it begins to feel like the wild. this is what happens when you plan a backpacking trip for a group of friends and you decide reluctantly to cancel the trip at the last minute because of bad weather - but you also can't stand the idea of staying at home when just minutes before you were anticipating stomping around in the woods, making a fire and seeking a bit of solitude.

I've only been out in the woods for a solo overnight adventure once before - and that was under entirely different circumstances probably 16 years ago. I never really thought much about wanting to try something of this nature alone - but the opportunity arose like a Walleye jumping out of the water and I grabbed it.

I barely made it to a campsite with water before dark, and hastily set up my tent before deciding to first cook my soup on a gas stove before searching for fuel for the fire. I only spilled my soup once time, which forced me to pump more water and start the boiling process all over again so it was very cold and dark before I got around to the fire part of the evening. I learned that it takes alot longer to set up camp when by oneself. there is no division of labor. also, it is a little more scary when you lose the trail and imagine yourself wandering around lost by yourself. but I encountered nothing that a little persistence and a compass couldn't handle.

Such a journey in solitude resembles a search for the self, an emptying and filling of conscious desire, awareness and the flickering embers of aliveness that heats your bones at night. it requires a certain familiarity with aloneness, it demands that we make a sort of peace with ourselves, it clarifies our actions and our movement. Sometimes, it is good for man to be alone.

For Those

interested in pictures of us
at various times

waiting for the bus at home

Killbuck Marsh (otherwise known as "the swamps down in Shreve")

home again

Favorite Portraits of the Day

for more portraits and other pictures, visit my photography website: www.lyricinblue.com

The Dad Project: Day 1

These pictures originate organically from a "day at home with the kids" and due to the difficulties provided by blogspot, do not flow in chronological sequence.

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The Daddy Experiment

9-27-10

Today I begin the real test of my stay-at-home-ability. O is off to work and I am in charge of the house, 3 kids, 4 cats and 1 dog. This isn't a task for the amateur parent - I'll have to make use of all the skills I've developed over the last 6 years, combine them into a superhero caped father figure and fly around the house, swooping in and around the kids.

Things start out well. N (5 months) sleeps in, after waking me up only twice in the predawn hours, allowing me to concentrate on only 2 kids on the first morning of this next full-time aprent stage. L (7) woke up at 6:30 with a bad dream but I still had time to set out bowls and spoons, hair combing equipment, cleaned eyeglasses and a packed lunch for Lyric before needing to wake up the girls.

L is already awake and complains that M (2) hasn't allowed her to go back to sleep after her dream. M, poised half off her bed, asks, "get up?" I say, "Yes, time to get up!" and she jumps off the bed and scrambles onto my lap.

Cereal and hair-combing go smoothly - I can even grab a second helping of Rice Krispies for M in between L's braids. It is raining this morning so we gear up with rainboots, hoods and umbrellas. M cries because she want's L's Tinkerbell umbrella and can't understand why she can't have it. I tell her she can share with me but she is dejected and sullen as we walk out the door. The girls are intrigued by the wet, misty morning and are quiet as we walk out to the end of the drive. M's curls pop out from under her hooded sweater. N bobs and chews on his carrier, close to my chest.

Owning a Home

owning a home

the apple tree out front
bends like a question mark
its apples falling below, periods and commas that feed the ants
I grab one up high, gray-speckled on green
a huge egg that fills my hand, crisp and sweet

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a stand of blackberry bramble that draws the curiosity with its fat, generous, elongated , full fruit

but threatens the resolve with its sharp thorns on every side

sweet and bulbous, cutting skin and tearing flesh

one upon one they heap in the stainless steel bowl

borrowing space until eaten

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the trees around this place
tall, silent, waiting
watching to see if I, too, will grow patient and enduring
I cut their lowest limbs carefully
respecting their dignity, covering their wounds
I want them to be proud
I want to live as long as they
my bark wrinkling deep, furrowed in age
and the strength of God in my loins

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toiling in the garden
bending low to pull weeds
close enough to the Earth to smell her scents
the brown, earthy musk
the sticky juice that leaks from the crushed stems of purple stems
the oily mint that hovers about the raised bed
the ruddy blush of budding corn

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a stray cat the harbors kittens between the woodpile and the barn
a vagabond, a survivor, a wounded spirit
she returns to her litter
after eating from the plastic blue bowl we stole from the kitchen
her month-old children lie together quietly while she is gone
a home is a place to put our children's beds
our cooking pots
our books
our garden tools
a place to let our dreams run free
tumbled out and unpacked
like our children, they will fall short of our expectation
they will scramble out of our control
they will become something other than ourselves
and they will bring us back to breaking
these things we have unleashed
then we will love them
with the same love
with new love
with love that finds its home in spaces between exile and want

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On the Anniversary of a Death

On the Anniversary of a Death

here on my patch of grassy hill

my head above hers, the grave

my thoughts and anticipation sift down

imagining her lying there, close

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my sister, where have you gone?

inspiration, you've fled

unfettered, you've flown

your mystical presence here gone

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these are the words of consideration

my eyes looking through grass

"our grass, our hill, our overlook, our sky"

our wonderful memories slanting through my hesitation

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feelings melt, dripping, dropping

upon the cavernous soul, awake, alive

on this point, this axis between our foreheads

the world rotates, the moon revolves

you are mine

When Parents Fail

Whenever I envisioned raising kids (which wasn't really that often) I never really spent much brain cell activity on thinking of how I would enact the tooth fairy. probably a good thing as I don't need to be all that disappointed in a dream unrealized. right as she turned seven, Lyric lost two of her front choppers. there was some drama and blood and lots of wiggling until we got 'em out - amid exclamation and exhalation and sighs of relief on all sides. I've never been one to play up all the fantasies of pop culture such as St. Nick and co, but putting her incisors under the pillow at night had started out as a fun tradition, and has now promptly ended - thanks to our malaise and her quick wit.

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the first two times we forgot to replace the tooth with U.S. currency, we tried to play it off as a late or absent-minded fairy. perhaps she was extra busy that night, or perhaps she was extra sneaky - putting the money under the pillow right after Lyric got up and was trying to figure out what had went wrong. Lyric was skeptical, but she was enjoying the cash. on the third failed attempt, my 7 year-old daughter decided to lay low. she evidently didn't think Dad and Mom had much to offer by way of explanation.

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when we sat down for breakfast, I could tell something was wrong and upon interrogation, she mumbled dejectedly, "everytime I put a tooth under the pillow, I check in the morning and it's still there. then I ask Mom and Dad about it and then it is there. It's so embarrassing!" she rolled her eyes for effect. I had to laugh in spite of myself, even though I could tell she was downright serious and even a bit insulted. I hugged her teary face and apologized for being such an unreliable tooth fairy stand in. I never was much good at telling lies.

Each Day

each day

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each day has its own death, birth, redemption

its poetry, its Fall

we die daily

some little disappointment rattling

or some tangled, scrambling fall among thorns

we glimpse a zenith at nightfall

when the moon is brightly midair

or at midday

when we drink cold water from a hose

there is reunion and congregation

woven in and out

a prayer shawl that is wrapped and unwrapped

one strand left loose is pulled

until all is undone

unraveled again in a sleepless pile

we tremble until morning

until resting, we breathe a few moments more

Don't Try This at Home (wherever that is)

I suppose there never is a really good time to move, but we always seem to pick the worst possible times. Suffice to say that we've vowed several times in the last few weeks never to move with a newborn, (we've done it twice), never to move and take on a new pet at the same time, and not to move for a very long time. We've reached our 7th place of residence during our almost 9 years of marriage and we've decided that enough really is enough. I know people move more than we, and do crazier things with more kids - but this is as crazy as I care to get. Being experienced in "move" doesn't really help the pain (of, for example, the thirtieth time in one day, "where is that so-and-so? I thought for sure I packed it in such-an-such a box! I know I saw it laying around here somewhere!), it just makes you think that you'll be better equipped for the realities of this current move - which you are in a sense, but in another, you never can be.

we've been supremely dislocated - from big city and small town suddenly spit out onto a 7-acre piece of country with big trees and garden soil. we flop about with pink, gasping gills, breathless and stupidly try to do 9 years of dream in 2 weeks. we alternate between backing each other down in a corner to take slow breaths and save ourselves from drowning simultaneously in euphoria and despair.

I think of these years, with 2 of our 3 children under two, as the bottleneck years of parenting. time (or the wisdom of older, smarter parents) will tell the true tale, but the thought helps me get through the insanely plentious demands of shaping a gangley-legged lump of clay into the semblance of family. between pre-move, move and post-move there have been a zillion decisions crammed into 6 months and the kind of machine gun-rattle on the brain that creats statements from O such as "I really have no idea who you are anymore!"

all this and at the exact same time there is breathtaking cuteness in your kids, as they wring out and trample upon your sleep-deprived-emotion heart. as your futile attempts to keep your dog from frollicking in the overflowing sewage yet again. you stand in a foreign kitchen watching your daughters giggle with a kitten, their faces lighting up again and again with the intense bursts of light like the fourth of July fireworks and a voice whispers urgently in your brain "hold on! hold on to these moments! these delicate, delicate moments! oh, hold on!"

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