Kinetic Energy

This morning I rolled out of bed and laced up my running shoes. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous morning for a lap around my neighborhood. Clear sky. The laundromat vented a hot smell of dyer sheets. Somebody's sprinkler-system kicked on -- the cold water nipped at my legs.

I'm an incurable morning-person. This has always been true. If there is a moment I'll feel peaceful, or well-assembled during any day it occurs before 9AM. I like being part of the hush of each morning as it falls, slowly, to the noise of moving things.

Years ago I studied poetry. Took a class where the instructor challenged us to understand the silence that preceded the text. The idea being that words rise out of some moment of acute pain, ecstasy, awe, anger, desire...without the acute sensation, the author has no reason to speak or write.

We used the same tools any poetry class would: scrutinizing the rhyme scheme, assonance, and imagery but for a completely different end-goal.

I was embarrassingly clumsy with the setting. Ask me (at nineteen) to kick into intellectual one-ups-man-ship and I was good to go. Similarly, I circular loop poetry to other poetry with the best of a freshman class. This professor, though, made a compelling case that the essential task of studying words is to understand the silence that precedes them. The notion blew my mind. It still does.

As I hit my stride this morning, I thought of that college classroom. My life now. How seldom I try to connect any past or present versions of myself. I smiled, thinking, the connection is murky water to explain without a significant re-write. Just then the sprinkler kicked on and I gasped at the sting of cold water.

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Personal Soundtrack: So Pure (Alanis Morisette)
Dinner Line-Up:Lemon-Garlic Risotto with Parmesean, Mushrooms, Pine Nuts, & Black Pepper

Introduction

Naomi attends a book club every Thursday evening. It's a group of second graders that sit around talking about books. Pretty cool.

Last night, we had introductions and each kid was asked to list five things about themselves. Here was Naomi's list:

1. My name is Naomi.
2. I don't have any brothers.
3. I don't have any sisters.
4. I don't even have any pets.
5. I have to clean my own room.

Invention-Suggestion Box

I must not have been looking when the summer weather toggled with its master on-off switch.

Spending the majority of my life in the Midwest, I'm no stranger to humidity. Since turning thirty I have also resolved to generally complain less about my life and circumstance. I'm hoping to mature into one of those suffer-in-silence types of people.

Trouble is, when you're good at silencing complaints nobody seems to recognize you're suffering. Overall the martyr role has only worked out marginally well for me thus far. I'll have to refine the long-suffering sigh to prompt respectful praise for my "silence." In the meantime I let out an involuntary groan as I read today's forecasted heat index of 114 degrees.

It's one of those summer days I fight the urge to crawl into my refrigerator's icebox and stay there until October. So, allow me to couch my gripes in the form of a money-making-invention-idea.

Might I suggest someone out there, somebody a whole lot handier than myself, invent an icebox big enough for a person to camp out in during days like this? The bare-box would be good and I'd be willing to pay for little extras like a computer, i-Pod, or pillowy cot so I could actually grab some restful sleep.

Just a thought.







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Currently Reading: Blessed Are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Currently Watching: Original Star Trek Episodes
Recently Enjoyed: The Visitor (2007)
Anxiously Awaiting: Eureka (Season 3.5, I think)

Productivity

The pages of my day-planner are filed with lists. Dated at the top of each page. Prioritized lists of things I want-to, hope-to, or must complete within the week. The long and the short of it is: I’m a task-completing-junkie. Sometimes I’ll list a ridiculously minuscule task, penning the words after it’s already done, just so I can cross it off.

Last Monday I found my favorite pen, opened up my day-planner, and started the week’s list. Synchronized the tasks with McKibbin’s work schedule, Naomi’s Summer Reading program, projects at work, and the calendar in our kitchen. The list is like my roadmap for the week. After sizing up the route I'm propelled to gas up the car, grab some iced tea, and go. I sat, staring at the list and waited for its familiar forward push. I grabbed a cup of coffee, sat back down at the table, stared at the page and waited some more. I checked my watch, glanced out the window...nothing...I crumpled up the page, and went back upstairs to take a nap.

Heavier Than Sadness

cleave /kleev/:to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly
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It was bound to happen. Careful and discrete as McKibbin is, at some point, Naomi was bound to catch on to his habit of smoking cigarettes. While playing jungle-people in our backyard the neighbor-girl made a small mention of the habit.

No, no, my dad doesn’t smoke. Mom used to smoke when she was in Colorado – boy, wasn’t that dumb?- but she quit.

Neither girl raised her voice or got upset. These two, when well rested, are often delicate with each other’s feelings. Naomi's companion danced her toe around in the dusty soil.

“What’s that clay pot next to your deck for?”
Cigarettes, Naomi answered.
“Where did the cigarettes come from?” The neighbor-girl was still looking at her toes, her soft voice wrapped around the question.

Naomi stopped talking about it. Moved on to something else. I sank down into my seat on the deck. Tried my invisibility act. The afternoon rolled on and the sun slanted in the sky. The other shoe dropped, hours later, at our dinner table. McKibbin was still at work so it was just the two of us.

“Mom, does dad smoke cigarettes?”
I think that’s a question you’ll have to ask your dad.
“Do you think he smokes cigarettes?

Yes. I think he does.

The sudden weight of knowing something so complicated fell quickly from her brain. Its outward expression is something like sadness. She realizes her dad would do something unhealthy. Feels a little foolish for being misled. Mad at us, probably, for keeping things from her. None of it falls so hard until you realize the space McKibbin occupies. An essential part of Naomi cleaves to him. This has always been true. Even the slightest shift in that space between them would require a massive amount of force.

The fork slipped from Naomi's fingers and clanged against her plate. “I bet he was too embarrassed, you know, to tell me about the smoking," she mumbled.

The part that surprises me more than any other is this: in the days since, Naomi has never mentioned this conversation to her dad.

The Work Around

Me: So, what's the password on your computer?
McKibbin: What?
Me: The password on your computer. I don't know, I just wondered about some of the stuff I don't know about you. Figured you were more likely to respond to a question like "What's the password on your computer..." rather than "So, how are you feeling recently..." or "Tell me about your childhood...".
McK: You want to know my password?
Me: Some couples share this stuff.
McK: Passwords, or feelings about their childhood?
Me: Both. But I'd feel pretty good if I knew your password. You know, baby steps.
McK: I could teach you how to log on without my password.
Me: Not the point.
McK: But basically it's the same thing.
Me: So, how are you feeling right now?
McK: See, the work around lets you have access to the computer.
Me: A little nervous, maybe? Vulnerable? Frustrated?
McK: (turning to the computer screen) From this screen you press control-alt-delete...

Barbie Campaign

Years ago I remember Naomi’s voice from the backseat of my car. She wondered out loud whether we might purchase a Barbie doll? An innocent enough question. Naomi was, maybe, two or three years old. Somebody at daycare played Barbie a lot. Sooner or later I had assumed I’d face the Barbie question so I was ready. Nope, no Barbies at our house.

Why? Naomi asked.

Again, I was ready with a response: I don’t like Barbie. My mental road-map of this conversation, however, stopped there. I hadn’t anticipated the follow-up “Why?”

To put it bluntly, I choked on the question…then I lied. Like a Persian rug I lied. Made up the “Barbie isn’t very nice” argument on the fly. I told the most salacious series of mean-Barbie stories I could conjure. She doesn’t let other people drive her T-bird. She built the Barbie pool such that there is only room for one. Does Barbie have a job? How did she get that big, Barbie-dream-house if she doesn’t have a job? I hear she’s selfish. She screams and cries when opening birthday she dislikes.

I got on such a roll that Naomi chimed-in. She fabricated stories of Barbie pushing and shoving her friends, not sharing well with Ken or Skipper…I patted myself on the back. I thought of the future body-image issues we avoided by quashing my daughter’s desire to own a Barbie doll. And, after that moment in the car, I didn't think much about it.

Weeks later, though, the lead teacher at daycare pulled me into the hallway. She was concerned that Naomi had some unusual narratives regarding the other girl’s Barbie dolls. I blinked up my doe-eyes and mmm-hmmmed my way through these concerns. Thanked her for mentioning it. Then proceeded to high-five my kid on the way home. Promptly, though, I dialed back the Barbie smear campaign. Obviously, I had made my point.

Barbie still comes up in conversation around our house from time-to-time. Friends or playmates will still occasionally play with Barbie dolls. If asked Naomi joins in. Five years since muzzling my Barbie-slam-fest, however, my girl makes sure each Barbie character is gainfully employed and quite generous with sharing her things.

All-Access Bracelet

Four days into Summer Vacation. Naomi has hit the pool every single day. Sporting goggles, beach towels, and a ridiculously ambitious level of SPF protection we were among the mass of families attending the Cooper Y’s Outdoor Water World Grand Opening Pool Party.

Naomi marched right over to the teeny-bopper lifeguard, insisted on taking the swim test and was promptly awarded a red bracelet which serves as an all-access pass. It enables her to swim anywhere in the pool, and to utilize the water-slide at the deep end.

Poolside social dynamics, I was surprised to realize, are relatively intact from the days my brother and I would ride dirt-bikes over to Ballard Pool.

A gang of pretty girls sprawled on beach towels appearing unimpressed by everything. Underwater hand-stands were met by gasps and squeals of praise. A pair of teen-aged boys made terrific use of their snorkeling set. I think some narrative about submarines was at work there, but I’m not sure, they spent a lot of time sub-surface. Life-guards twirled their whistle strings. The war-paint white nose was missing. Maybe it’s too early in the year, maybe there are better sun screen products now.

Safety Check was met, universally, by kids groaning about the injustice of it all as they clamored out of the water. Naomi told me I could swim laps (I was “big enough”). She gangled over to spend Safety Check with some of her friends. Hadn't seen them since school let out last Thursday, you know. One of the girls noticed Naomi’s red bracelet.

"Oh, yeah, that." Naomi shrugged and held out her wrist, "You know, there's a lot that's happened this summer."

Summer Starting Line

Standing at the bathroom sink, brushing my teeth, I asked Naomi how we could make the last day of school special?
She proposed walking to school.
Sure, I said, no problem.
By myself, she clarified.
A spring, deep in my chest, that kind of holds me together yelped.
I-I think that would be o.k.
Coooooool! Naomi giggled.

This is a picture of my girl walking down Harwood Street by herself. Actually, she's running full clip. Because, when you're seven and life is this thrilling, who could walk?
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Weekend Soundtrack: There She Goes (The La's)
Currently Reading: Martian Time-Slip by Phillip K. Dick
Recent Cause For Celebration: McKibbin and I celebrated four years of marriage this past week. Four years and nobody's gouged their eyes out. I must say, I think this is going rather well.
Dinner Line Up: Grilled Black Bean Burgers, Potato-Mustard Salad with Tarragon, Fresh Strawberries
Currently Craving: Fresh Lemonade with Mint