Fresh Salsa

My vegetable garden has evolved into a whole new level of meaning...

Day Made

Naomi: Mom, I thought up a nickname for you today.

Me: Really?

Naomi: Mmm-hmmmm, wanna know what it is?

Me: Is it nice?

Naomi: It's honest.

Me: Ew.

Naomi: Wanna know what it is?

Me: OK...sure.

Naomi: I made your name be Super-Cool.

The Joy of Being Wild

Naomi and I went for a hike last weekend and she cooked up the idea of writing a book. She thought up a title she was particularly fond of. Put her fingers to her lips as she spoke the words: The Joy of Being Wild.

From there, my pen and paper chased after her brainstorm trying to capture the dust as it fell down behind her. Here's some of the advice my paper caught:

Do cartwheels in the open grass.

Ford rivers often. It gets your feet nice and icy cold.

Eat purple plants.

Look straight at the sun with your eyes clamped shut.

Dig around in the dirt.

Let your hair blow all over the place.

Appreciate the privilege it is to live here.

May Day

"the earth laughs in flowers"
- e. e. cummings

Kite Flying

See that speck in the center of my reel? That's the kite. At full extension. Sigh.

19th Amendment

"We shall someday be heeded, and–everybody will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people think that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses always were hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon today has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past."

~Susan B. Anthony

Backyard

In the past seven days the weather broke loose with a heat wave. All that melted snow turned into a bog and, most recently, a green-scape.

With four weeks left of my Spring semester classes, I took my textbook outside last night. Leafed through the pages, crunched numbers into my calculator, and nursed a beer on the back deck. Naomi played with the neighbor girls in the yard.

By any measure, it's been a grueling winter. Years ago I read some lines about how winter inspires you to remember the tune your bones play. Mark Strand, maybe? Anyway, it's an image that arrived with the snow and sat on my chest all winter long.

It's nice to feel things lift. The welcome chatter with my neighbors. I marked a moment feeling grateful last night for the pleasant feel of bare feet, the bright sun, and the color green.


______

Yes, I'm that geeky...but...it bothered me to spend a whole winter plagued by an image but not be able to place it in a fuller context. The tune your bones play comes from this poem by Mark Strand. Whew, I feel better now. Thanks.

...the upbreathing air

With the recent infusion of sun things lighten up, a little, at work. My Monday meeting was filled with more zings and ready laughter than I’ve heard in a while. Something is bubbling up and out from this wet ground.

I spent my morning coffee break taking a short walk outside. Squinted into the chilly wind I reveled in a single thought: winter is almost over.
_____
Dinner Line Up: Kedgeree & Spinach Salad
Currently Reading: The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
Reading with Naomi: The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
Personal Soundtrack: What I Got (Sublime)
Recent Goodness: Seeing my friend, Jennifer, take every available news outlet by storm to urge Lincoln to Vote YES on the Haymarket Arena project.

Leprechaun Trap

Just before bedtime on March 16th Naomi insisted on constructing this leprechaun trap in her bedroom. Cut and taped the whole thing together in a flurry of inspiration. Tried to use a magic marker create "gold" coins as bait at the base of the trap. Then she giggled and plotted under the covers having a hard time falling asleep.

Sadly the trap stood empty on St. Patrick's Day morning. Naomi sighed with a heavy, defeated sigh saying. Genuinely disappointed she said, "I just wanted to prove that leprechauns were real."

Just By Looking

Naomi was wandering around our cold house without any socks or slippers. My foot empathy factor was just going berserk. I kept asking over, and over: don't you want some socks or something? She'd decline. I'd grow more insistent.

Finally, I flung some clean socks at her head without further instructions. She put them on and shot me a look.

Me: So that's the 'Mom, you've-gone-crazy-with-this-preoccupation-with-my-feet' look?
Naomi: No.
Me: No?
Naomi: That was the "I-could-see-perfectly-well-those-socks-were-headed-my-way-thirty minutes-ago. You-could-just-walk-them-over-to-me, you know. No-need-to-toss-them-at-my-face' look.
Me: That's a lot to say in a look.


Naomi: It is. But I'm pretty good at saying what I mean just by looking.

Introductions

As far back as my memory serves I’ve considered myself an environmentalist. My affinity for the natural world has influenced my coursework, several major life decisions, casual reading lists, weekend itineraries, and steered my career path. I’ve made no secret about it and nobody would be surprised to hear me say I’m an environmentalist.

Last week, however, I was asked to introduce myself and the word environmentalist lay dormant in my mouth. And I wondered if it's a shoe that still fits? I'll occasionally have these crises of conscience having decided to work in the electric utility industry rather than as an activist.

I considered whether environmentalism isn’t more of an ideology and whether I drink from its camp kool-aid. Certainly I ascribe to a creed of ecosystem protection, moderating more fervent consumption of the world’s resources, seeing a person’s rightful place in the world a rather small (hopefully) insignificant part of a much larger system.

Occasionally, though, I sink with the pulpy conversation surrounding environmental issues. The way political rhetoric and lofty ideals rarely sully themselves with the details. The inherent value of the goal can't simplify the mechanics of how to get from here to there.

My stumbling over the word environmentalist came as I sat in a group of environmental professionals. You know, the people tasked with carbon management, complying with clean water standards, or raw material and waste process balancing acts. Nobody quoted Edward Abbey or boasted about their habit of recycling both glass and plastic at home.

Instead this was a group that calculates the emission control factors. Defines drinking water pollutants by congener. We agonize over the complicated benchmarks and metrics. The variables we occasionally can neither explain nor more fully understand.

The table conversation might have lent well to cynicism, actually, or making sport of belittling other perspectives. And, yet, it never did.

It was there that I realized I could still consider myself an environmentalist. In realizing I hadn't grown tired nor cynical in the face of unsimple, often frustrating, environmental issues. In another setting I'd use the term to describe myself. Environmentalist. In this one, it was a given.

Soup Club

Several years ago I formed a soup club habit. I had always winced at the thought of winter. The post holiday season feeling of isolation that draws out well into March. So instead of wincing I started to invite a clutch of friends over to swap soups.

Our soup club met again yesterday and I arrived, giggling, with the sense this was some red-carpet equivalent. My imagination flooded the scene with a zillion blinks from flashbulbs, and the shallow sort of E-Channel soft questioning.

I shook off the image until the group responded to the sound of the door with a loud bellowing cheer. Unwrapping from my coat and scarf someone asked after the type of soup I sported that day. The question, in my mind, comparable to “Who are you wearing?” I batted my eyelashes, struck a pose, and found a sultry voice to announce my companion as pumpkin soup with rosemary and lime zest.

The group swooned openly and I blushed under the gaze of open flattery. The warm air of the apartment was stinging against my cheeks. There is no cold winter, no pervasive sense of loneliness these occasions couldn't help remedy.

The Better Story

Naomi is on a Rising Stars team which meets twice a week after-school. Rising Stars is a program that tasks kids with creative problem-solving. Last night after team practice Naomi and I cruised over to the grocery store and had the following conversation.

Me: So how was Rising Stars today?
Naomi: GREAT!!!
Me: Yeh? What are you guys up to?
Naomi: We’re doing a news-show with commercials and everything. I really want to do a throw back in time so I can be Shirley Temple.
Me: For a commercial?
Naomi: No, in the news-show. You know, a story about who Shirley Temple was and how she died.
Me: Hon, I think Shirley Temple is still alive.
Naomi: So?
Me: Well, news stories are generally non-fiction.
Naomi: I have to think up someone who’s already dead?
Me: You could always do a "Where Is She Now" story about Shirley Temple. But, if you want to talk about somebody’s death: yes that person should be dead.
Naomi: Like Elvis.
Me: Yes, Elvis is dead.
Naomi: Then maybe we could do a story about how the aliens came down from their spaceship and killed Elvis.
Me: -------
Naomi: Yep, that could work.
Me: Is that how Elvis died?
Naomi: No, mom, he died from drugs just like Michael Jackson. Lied to his doctor, got the drugs, and died from them. I just thought the space alien angle was, you know, more interesting.

Talent Show

After weeks of early morning rehearsals Naomi took center-stage at Prescott Elementary School's Talent Show last Friday. Ms. Sundiah, a teacher from the Before-and-After school program, had spent weeks teaching and rehearsing with Naomi a traditional East Indian dance.

Friday night was the big show and it was one of those moments I felt a little awe-struck. Naomi was both poised and focused. She was gracious in accepting a top prize from the judges and the compliments from her peers. As the auditorium emptied she sought out other Talent Show performers to tell them "good job" or "that was sooooo funny!"

I was pleased just to sit back to watch Naomi and, when it came time to go, hold her coat.

Th!nk Tank

"That's the deal. People in politics like to talk a lot, but they don't like to answer specific questions." ~Naomi, aged 7.

Distant Voices From Other Rooms

I ordered a cappuccino today. For years this hasn't been a habit of mine. Not since my early twenties when I landed a summer au pair job outside of Edinburgh.

All summer I'd meet another au pair, Anne-Marie, for cappuccino at least once a week. She was Dutch, I was an American, so as foreigners our employers had set us up.

That first Saturday we met by the Walter Scott Monument. After a pleasant hello she grabbed me by both shoulders. Leaned in to kiss the air next to my cheek, and suddenly stopped to ask "How many kisses you give in America? Two? In Brittan it's two, in Holland we kiss three times."

Needless to say we were fast friends. Traveled to the coast, ambled around castles, sketched the crowded city skyline, ate biscotti and ice cream. We'd go to libraries and museums. Arranged playdates for the the children we were minding. Sported guide books and walking tours, tipped the street performers, darted around narrow streets. She introduced me to both Janis Ian and cappuccino that summer. And always opted for the front row seat atop the top flight of a double-decker red bus.

I've never spoken of that summer without a giggling description of my friend Anne-Marie from Amsterdam. We never exchanged addresses, never exchanged letters. Just packed our bags at the close of that summer, got our passports and traveled off from each other. It's that way when you're twenty-something. It was for me anyway. Letting go lightly.

But I thought of her this morning. In the thick of a Midwestern winter I wondered if she was similarly married and feeling less bold in her thirties? I wished her well, mentally kissed the air next to her cheek three times, and ordered myself a cappuccino.

The Weeklong Cold

Our household spent the whole week with a late-winter bug. It's the kind of cold that moves in and stays a while. So I laid in bed last night, creating a list of my favorite things and least favorite things when I'm sick.

Favorite Things When I'm Sick:

1. Hot Pudding
2. Sad Movies
3. Plush Kleenex
4. Socks & Slippers
5. Juice of All Varieties
6. Clean Sheets
7. Fleece Everything
8. Hot Showers
9. Fresh Air Once In A While
10. A Foot Massage
11. Naps With Cats
12. Spearmint Smelling Lotion
13. To-Go Food (Preferably Delivered To My Front Door)
14. Super-Power Prescription Decongestants

Least Favorite Things:

1. My Car Sporting A Mysterious Warning Light of Some Kind
2. Taking My First Calc Test Of The Term
3. Compulsively Worrying About House/Work/School Duties I've Shirked
4. Nightly Snowfall
5. Morning Routine Of Scooping The Walk/Scraping The Car
6. Saline Nasal Spray (ew)
7. Wet Mittens
8. Cold Toes
9. Waking Up With A Sneeze

Proper Lens

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." ~ Kahlil Gibran

Spellin' It Out

N: Some of the kids in my grade are interested in girlfriend-boyfriend type things.

Me: Really, what do you think of that?

N: I think it's embarrassing and there's a lot of crying involved.

Me: Well...

N:...like this boy, Gabe, he comes up to girls at recess and tells them they're his girlfriend. Later he breaks up with them and all the girls cry.

Me: Really?

N: Yeh. Except my friend, Aleeah. She didn't cry. She told Gabe, "Look, you never asked me and I never said I was your girlfriend in the first place. So alls I ever said is we were friends but, you know what? Now that you're being so mean to me? Being friends just isn't my thing. You know, friends? The only thing we were to begin with? Yeh, that relationship has ended. It's over, Gabe. O-V-E-R."

_____
Reminder: Naomi, Gabe, & Aleeah are all in the Second Grade.

Road Trip = Good Pie

Naomi hatched our Sunday plans. After our weekly habit of cleaning up the house she suggested we bake a pie. Dawdling around the aisles of the grocery store we talked about flaky pie crusts and butter. Spent a lot of time in the produce aisle deliberating the type of filling we wanted.

Me: You know, with just the three of us the pie might sit in the fridge a while. It's best to eat pies while they're still warm.
Naomi: Mmmm, then we should invite over some friends today.
Me: Ok. I guess we could call Samantha and invite her girls to come over...
Naomi: ...and maybe Monique would come.
Me: Maybe Monique would come. I'll give her a call.
Naomi: How about Lily?
Me: Lily lives in Denver, sweetie. I'm sure she'd appreciate the invitation but, you know, it's a long way to drive.
Naomi: Yeh. (sigh) It'd have to be a really good pie.

Yellow

Me: So how was your day?
Naomi: Outstanding!
Me: Really?
Naomi: Yep.
Me: Outstanding?
Naomi: Mmm-hmm.
Me: So, what happened?
Naomi: Oh, nothing really.
Me: Nothing?
Naomi: Except Ms. Kaptuska painted our classroom.
Me: That's it?
Naomi: Well, it's yellow.
Me: And?
Naomi: Have you ever tried being sad when you're staring at a whole lot of yellow?
Me: Nope.
Naomi: Can't happen.

Twenty-Nine To Go

Last week the Spring semester started. I logged on to the website, downloaded my syllabus, ordered my books. I set my alarm clock and resolved to rise a little earlier. Resumed my habit of plugging the laptop in each night to make sure it’s charged and ready to go. Stashed my graphing-calculator in the glove-box of my car. My 2010 calendar suddenly spills over with deadlines and test dates.

But there is an energy I start the new semester with. An appreciation for learning and new ideas. I embrace an ambitious agenda for my nights and weekends. And think I might both get my homework and family's laundry done by Sunday. The semester is thirty weeks long.

As of last night, though, the count is actually one-down and twenty-nine to go.


________________________
Currently Reading: America’s Report Card by John McNally
Studying with N: World Geography
Dinner Table Discussion: Whether or not N accompanies me to Chicago in February.
Currently Watching: Prairie Wind (PBS)
Enjoyed Immensely: (500) Days of Summer

Connectivity

I have this thin book I carry around with me. I write down random things inside: song lyrics, snippets of NPR stories, a clever exchange of words I'll over hear at the coffee shop, parts of church sermons.

Does everybody have one of these books? Something similar? Something you take out periodically to look at the words or revisit something you heard once? A book you thumb through when you're feeling down?

Yesterday I had to pull over to write down an idea I heard on our local NPR Station. As always I'm paraphrasing.

People are in no less need of true companionship or profound connection.

We are less practiced at it, certainly. We have more noise and distractions from it. The noise of Twitter or Google instant and easy communication eats up time and brainspace. It feels like a substitute because is pushes away the silence or the loneliness. But that need for connection goes unsatisfied. Fundamentally, neurologically, spiritually, biologically, however you look at it...we still need it. A true exchange of selves. A conversation or connection that is more than a series of well-rehearsed monologues.

I sat there in my car, the engine humming, the buzz of traffic outside and listened to the whole interview. I shuffled through my cluttered purse to find my thin book and a pencil. Wrote down just fragments of the ideas, parts of words and the page blurred up. I can't possibly improve upon the sentiment. I just wrote it down in my book. And wrote it down here so it doesn't get lost.