Quiet day

This pregnancy has been one marked more frequently by fatigue, cramping, and spotting. Yesterday night I felt exhausted and crampy and sure enough by the end of the day I was spotting again. Not a lot, but it stresses me out for obvious reasons. Every time it happens I worry--even just a tiny bit--that this is the moment when the beautiful pregnancy is signaling that it's almost over. That said, it helps that this is my fourth or fifth time spotting with this pregnancy, and I can still feel the baby kicking.

I decided to make it an easy day, as low-key as possible. Cora and I ended up sipping chamomile tea after breakfast, painting at her easel in the kitchen, playing with her dollhouse (which today mainly meant walking the paper dollhouse dog on a long leash around the house) and catching a break of sun and springlike weather in the backyard. We ate a leisurely lunch of burritos stuffed with chicken, kale, corn, olives, and cheese (she claimed she didn't like the kale but she ate it anyway) and then sat back on the couch under a blanket and read 10 stories.

She's battling sleep right now. Even though I'm tired, I'm downstairs doing this instead of trying to nap in the next-door room. Vegetable broth is cooking on the stove and lentils are soaking for tonight's soup. We'll bake a new GF sandwich bread this afternoon when she's done napping.

My sister sent me home the other day with several books, and I'm well into The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, which is proving to be the perfect combination of mystery, adventure, and culture for cozy January nights.

These mild, Northwest mid-winter sunbreaks confuse our plants. I noticed today that, along with a million weeds, we have bluebells pushing through the ground. Bluebells in January? The earth is soft and everything smells rich. Cora and I talked about our apple and pear trees and the site for our garden (I'm so excited to start growing food!), and wandered around studying birds and rocks and moss.

I think all my pregnancy hormones have catapulted me into a relative state of domestic bliss. This is nothing like the wanderlust I felt last year. I've never felt so much contentment from cooking and quiet afternoons of writing.

Now if only the little lady would fall asleep and I could write a few paragraphs of my story.

Summer

Whew, so this is summer. 103 degrees yesterday and in the 90s all week. I was walking with a friend yesterday and she was commenting that we Northwesterners might just need to get used to the fact that we have hot summers and cold winters. We keep thinking we live in the most temperate climate ever, and then bam! hot days with no air conditioning and freezing winter snowdrifts without proper snowploughs.

I was looking through some of my posts since April and realized that this has already been a great summer on the weekend adventure front. We've taken day trips to Bainbridge, Vashon, Deception Pass, Rattlesnake Ridge, and Whidbey, and camped or stayed on Camano Island, San Juan Island, and Deception Pass. It's fun to have a transportable, active toddler who delights in adventure.

This past weekend on San Juan Island was pretty exceptional. For one thing, we confirmed that our tent is truly waterproof. We were lying in our bed around 9 p.m., staring up at the window in our tent ceiling while lighting flashed and thunder crashed. Cora was fast asleep between us and our whispered conversation alternated between Hey, this is really cool, to Oh wow, I hope we don't get incinerated. We spent most of the night listening to the downpour snap against the sides of our tent. We awoke at about 6 to almost 90-degree weather and spent the day in and out of the lakes that surrounded our campsite. We traveled with friends and Cora enjoyed spending time with their cute daughters, a 3-year-old and a 16-month-old. Their favorite pastime was to tromp up a grass hill and slide or run down a dusty path until they were covered in dirt from head to toe. We played tag (including a pretty hilarious game of freeze tag; imagine two toddlers trying to get the concept of standing still while everyone else runs about). And we saw whales! We took a day trip to a nearby waterfront whale-watching park and after staring forever at the water with no luck, we were stunned on our way out to see a pod of Orcas breaking the surface of the water below. Cora got swept up in the excitement and shouted "Yay Orcas!" when they surfaced, and nodded knowingly at us when they went back, "Shy whale."

Have you ever traveled on a ferry to an island? If not, you must put it on your list of Things You Must Do. Salty wind in your face, sun high in the sky, gulls circling, mind-boggling views of rugged coastlines and the rise of evergreens against mountain ranges, and when the air hits you it's so cold no matter what the temperature of the day that all you can feel is this blissful awareness of what it is to be alive, right then, a tiny being in the middle of a life.

As I mentioned before, my wanderlust is in full swing. We're thinking about more upcoming weekend adventures, planning an early autumn vacation (we haven't been out of town for longer than a few days since winter of '07). In general, I spend a lot of my wakeful moments making lists about what needs to be done to get to The Next Big Stage. In the mornings, I have distracted walks chatting with Cora about our surroundings and thinking about the story arc and next chapter of this maybe-novel I'm writing, while imagining the trees I hope we'll have in the yard of our next home, while jotting down mental notes about the projects we need to tackle in our current house. Present Moment Zen Masters would disapprove of my mental state but I can't say it's not exciting.

Sometimes I still think about going back to work, other times I think about getting pregnant and buying a hypoallergenic puppy so that it can wander through our house, shake like a dog, and not make Brian sneeze. Often I look into Cora's eyes and I can't even believe how beautiful they are, so lovely and sweet that all I want to do is kiss her, other times I dance around the kitchen trying to make her a decent sandwich while she shrieks Snack! Snack! More Chips! Maaaaaammmmmaaaa! And I have to remind myself that her job is to get my attention as much as possible, and that she doesn't have the tiniest iota of an idea that I used to exist before she did. That makes me smile.

The rain reigns

It's raining the kind of rain that begs you to imagine waterways and deep underground wells. It's the kind of rain that runs in rivulets down dirt paths, etching out a presence there. It's the kind of rain that dredges up memories because you can't very well escape a rain like this. You're left with yourself.

I remember this rain. It rained like this when I was a kid. I used to look out my bedroom window, standing on tiptoes, at my backyard. Our yard abutted a 40-acre forest and I imagined places where I could hide from the rain, just listening to it hit the leaves above me. I used to put a leash on my dog and dress in rain pants and a raincoat and rubber boots, and go outside. Sometimes I'd bring a snack. Mostly I was excited to explore. I would often pack a journal and a pen, planning to catalogue what I saw out there. Sometimes I'd set out with a plan (find gnomes); other times I would plan simply to see how far I could go before the trees ended and I found road.

That solitude formed a part of my brain that is happiest when imagination reigns. I would sit quietly and imagine a big space up ahead of me, a life that was my own. Nevermind that I never did see a gnome or a fairy. The act of believing gave me a sense of energy and excitement. It made me feel like I could bend the ways of the world.

Age makes people stop believing in things that don't make sense. I remember a friend of mine telling me that we spend a lot of our time searching for Easy Street when in reality it just doesn't exist. This thought cracked against my heart while I sat across from her, sipping my tea and nodding my head in agreement. I might have been wearing heels. It's possible the 3-inch alteration of self is what tipped me over into a heady, sad spin. No Easy Street? But I want to believe in the idea of personal bliss. I love reading stories about people who find theirs. I love simple endings filled with a sublime sense of love, or of finding oneself, or of overcoming odds, or even of just believing in happiness enough to search for it.

I love all kinds of stories. I particularly like stories about people who refuse to believe all is as it seems. I like to think that everything gets better over time, that each small effort is a step closer to peace and satisfaction, that we become better people just be thinking about our place and by directing ourselves to where we want to be.

I think that's why I have an obsession with quiet, homey places, and the woods. I want a place in the trees that always reminds me of that sense of self that washed over me as a child, when it suddenly occurred to me that there were windows of opportunity up ahead, that destination and destiny could be altered by effort and hope.

I would like to be one of those people who deftly ties together a bunch of wildflowers from my backyard and places them in a blue vase on my driftwood mantle, where I store sand-polished rocks from the beach and spots of blue like blue glass or blue beads or an old blue marble, where everything is awash in calm, and where I know just exactly where to find my favorite pen.

I feel cluttered here. We own things we don't need. We have a junk drawer that is overwhelming. I have drawers filled with clothes I don't wear. We heard helicopters and sirens circling the neighborhood for the better part of an hour before Cora's nap time, and I thought well, now. This is not the peaceful song I want my girl to hear before she goes to sleep.

What I think I am trying to say is that I am obsessed with the ethereal. I like words like blue and sea and sky and clouds, rain and wind and magic and the future, dreams and hope and rushing and wild. I prefer to think of them than to look at the clutter on my desk or the unframed 1910 poster of Melinda's Wedding Day that I received for our wedding in 2005, and which I have been meaning to frame ever since. I continue to wash and fold my ill-fitting clothes and to look outside at the weeds.

The reason, for the moment? I have a girl calling from her bedroom. I will go open the door and lift her up and nuzzle my face into her sweet little neck. And we will go do something fun together. We have an entire, untapped afternoon ahead of us. Possibility poking its nose up from every playground and tree in town.

The first thing we shall do together? Go outside and clip some of the lilacs from our tree, and arrange them in a blue vase on our dining room table. We will put bluebells on the mantle.

Wa-wa on a spring day

I have many childhood memories of making boats out of leaves and sticks and floating them down streams and ditches or setting them off to sea in the rocky waters of Puget Sound. Yesterday we celebrated the sun by walking down to the Ravenna trails and playing in the creek. Have you ever spent the afternoon watching water sparkle beneath a spring sun, the kind of northwest rays that are lemony and transparent and filter through leaves in the most gentle of ways? And then looked at the entire scene and wondered what it was like to look at it for the first time ever in your life? I don't think I'll ever stop getting all choked up and amazed when I see the curiosity and excitement on Cora's face when she sees something for the first time.

"Wa-wa!" she shrieked, pointing at the creek.
"Yes, it's water. It's a creek! Let's make boats and float them in the water!"
"Wa-wa!" she shrieked again, just to make sure I heard her. "Wa-wa!"
"Yes, water! Let's make boats!"

While I was desperately excited about reliving childhood memories, I think it's safe to say that Cora could have stood at the little wooden fence and peered over for upwards of an hour, staring at the water dance merrily through the canyon and rustle under trees and leaves. I ended up coaxing her toward the water's edge with a variety of items in my hands: branch bits, rocks, cedar boughs, and dried leaves. We stood on a tiny bridge and crouched low to the ground, sometimes lying on our bellies and looking over, while we dropped items into the water below, waving bye-bye to each one as it was pulled away. She was smitten. I was transported to carefree days alone and free, or with a friend or my dog or my sister, wandering through the day with my heart high in my chest and a thousand new discoveries around the bend. I remember great efforts going into the making of boats, searching for the perfect flat branch and broad leaf, then sending it off with a pine cone sailor and my blessings for safe travels.

The Ravenna trails have been so well renovated in the past few years that they are truly an outdoorsy paradise in the midst of a relatively urban circle of neighborhoods. We ended up climbing a new trail out of the canyon and managed to arrive in one piece. Remind me not to try to carry a small child in my arms while pulling a too-heavy stroller and climbing exceedingly steep, muddy paths. I had hilarious visions of being that sad little headline in the local news: Mom and Child In Critical Condition After Hiking Local Hill. We were rewarded with such a sweet little patch of neighborhood streets, though, that it was well worth the trip. I wandered through the quietest, most lovely little spot in Seattle and ended up at the end of a dead-end street where I found a rope swing jerry-rigged over the canyon. Oh, the memories! You must have them, too--there are few children who can't remember one or more blood-curdling journeys high in the sky, the world dropping away while friends cheer in the background. I had half a mind to park Cora on the curb and take a few flights myself.

At the end of the day, I told B that if we lived in a slightly more welcoming climate, I'm not sure Cora and I would ever be inside. I think we would just fill our backpacks with snacks and head out on long adventures, coming back for naps and necessary toddler rejuvenation. I truly can't think of a better way to live than to be outside all day, breathing fresh air and dipping fingers in cool, clear water. We spent all day yesterday singing our praises of spring, looking at crocuses and daffodils and green moss and willow tree buds. It made me wish for the farm house in the woods that I dream about nearly every day...on acreage, surrounded by creek beds and birds and gardens, with a playhouse and a giant garden, and a ton of kids circling the lawn and shrieking at the top of their lungs. I continue to have an escapist obsession with Vashon Island and northern California, both, and can get all woozy and weepy with my vision of our lives in either place.

As an aside, I wish I had a picture to post of the trails. I've decided my blog looks really naked. I'm going to make an effort to add pictures, which will be a fun addition to the process. Maybe I'll even come out of the closet a bit more and post a picture of myself, or even send my blog to more people. I've been relatively anonymous about the whole thing, but have been thinking it would be fun to share these silly days and anecdotes with more people.

Island kids

My parents were able to give us a lot of independence, the kind that is impossible today in the city and in these strangely uncertain times when trust isn't a given, when you can't just let your kids stay out till dark playing with their friends unsupervised. We lived on a small island, in a private community, and we knew nearly all our neighbors within a mile. Our house was in a little cul de sac, surrounded by forest. We lived on about an acre, like most of the houses on our block, and on our lot alone we had at least five secret forts. We also had a decent sized playhouse that my dad built, tucked far behind our house, a recessed sandbox in the raised deck that wrapped around the kitchen and living room, a tire swing fort, and an excellent driftwood birdhouse that my sister helped build.

We made good use of these areas. My sister and I would go through obsessive periods with our playhouse, setting it up with bunk beds and planning to sew our own quilts, bringing out all the unused pots and pans from the kitchen, arranging tables and chairs and washing the windows and skylights (thanks to my dad, it was a pretty spiffy house, all decked out with two skylights and several windows, and a door with a real brass doorknob, and I think it even had some kind of a doorbell, the kind that you pulled--at least I think it did, but maybe I'm just making that up). Inspired by Little House on the Prairie and Hansel and Gretel, my sister and I gathered a bunch of rocks at the beach and made a long, snaking pebbled pathway that lead to the door. I think we spent at least an entire weekend working on it. We painted the walls with watercolor and Tempra paint--one wall yellow, one red, one green, with a pink ceiling. We also had a big fire pit out back, and I remember scary ghost story nights with the neighborhood kids, singing songs and roasting marshmallows while big potatoes charred in aluminum foil. It was a large fire pit, not a little squirrelly thing, and produced roaring fires that you could be proud of, even though the thick layer of dry, deciduous leaves on the ground meant that we always ran the risk of burning down the entire establishment. At some point, we got into the whole idea of ivy-covered walls and trees, so we transplanted ivy plants to the ground below all the trees and the house. Even when my parents informed us that the ivy would kill the trees, we pushed back, feeling strongly that it was an important touch, something you just had to do for the right atmosphere. But invariably we would forget all about our playhouse and our plans until months later when we would be back out there, pulling down cobwebs and raking the leaves. Almost all our adventures were inspired by the books we were reading, so at some fairy tale point we got invested in the idea of a good security system and spent days digging a moat around our playhouse, and a huge hole in the backyard covered with a network of strategically placed branches and leaves, even dusting the surrounding area with similar ground cover to ensure that any errant bandits would end up with twisted ankles or broken necks. My sister actually sported a very nice swollen ankle a few months later when we dashed out there and forgot about our great work.

In the 70s and 80s, being home schooled was a very weird concept, especially in a small community like ours where the school system was comparatively pretty tops. It wasn't for religious reasons, it just stemmed from an idealistic, hippie, and controlling notion my mom had about raising kids to be free spirits, unfettered by rules and bells and tests and gossip. Our curriculum was about as unstructured as our approach to decorating our playhouse--there were days that began at 4 or 4:30 with work in our family-owned sprout business where we bagged sprouts while wearing kerchiefs or underpants on our head to keep our super long, braided hair from shedding everywhere. (Yes, sprouts...it started as a homeschooling project on photosynthesis and became the 2nd largest sprout business in the state--a topic for another post.) Dad would quiz us on the order of planets in the solar system and mom would keep up an ongoing spelling bee. Then we would adjourn in the dining room for some ultra healthy breakfast--miso soup, brown rice with gomasio (sesame seed salt), seaweed, sauteed vegetables, and maybe some fried mochi. We'd often munch on an entire bowl of newly-whacked steamed kale from our organic garden. Sometimes we'd get lucky and end up with a slightly more normal breakfast--homemade waffles that my mom made with freshly ground flour in her grinder, or huge bowls of oatmeal covered with dried fruit faces, or scrambled tofu and toast. Mom would spend the meal waxing on and on about yin and yang and the balanced elements of our food, the level of salt and sweet and whether it was cooked enough or too much, and if that day's batch of soup or rice was as good as yesterday's. Then we'd practice our multiplication tables or play with our flash cards, or go on a nature walk with our biology books. We read a lot, talked a lot, studied world religion and Buddhist philosophy, meditated and did yoga and wrote stories. We walked at least 5 miles a day, played outside every morning and afternoon and evening, wandered through the woods and collected leaf bouquets and snails and ladybugs and worms, centipedes and injured birds and pine cones and flowers and rocks. Mom or dad would call us home from all corners of the neighborhood with our signature family whistle, a long, sharp, curling call that we could hear from miles away and had to obey even if we were in the middle of a riveting game of flashlight tag with the neighbor kids.

My parents obviously had a dream--albeit quite unusual--for their family which they managed to pull off amazingly well for quite a number of years. I wish I could say that it lasted, that they were still over there together, mulching their compost pile or weeding their garden, playing guitar and cooking giant pots of soup or holding yoga conventions, even sunbathing naked on a perfect summer day. They would both make fabulous eccentric older island people, kind neighbors and community members.

Strangely, despite years of indifference and hostility about their neuroses, I find myself wanting to replicate many of my parent's ideals, knowing that even though I could open our door and let Cora play in our backyard until well past dark, her stomping ground would obviously be pretty truncated compared to mine; 6,000 square feet in a city neighborhood is hardly the darkly fantastic woods of my childhood. We certainly will never let her play with friends in a meadow at 7 p.m., while all the parents stand around somewhere else chatting about all the neighborhood goings-on. It's not likely she'll ever get to spend an entire afternoon losing her shoes in a giant field with grass so tall it's several feet higher than her, while she carves out an entire mansion with bedrooms and everything, simply by staring up at the sky and falling backward to make giant body imprints. And I'm guessing she might be too cool to dash around the house putting on clip-on pearl earrings for her first date with Peter, the boy across the street, so that they might be able to hold hands on their way to the creek to build a dam on a rainy day.

Reflections

As most parents often say, having a child brings a lot of laughter and love into your life. (And, often, too, a lot of sleeplessness and exhaustion.) As Cora starts her foray into toddlerhood, I am discovering a new kind of connection to her. Having a baby is very parental; it's very much focused on taking care of and changing and swaddling and rocking and soothing. Having a near-toddler is a new phase, it begins to brush against my own memories of being a wee one, navigating around my home and getting into mischief. It's when memory started. All the little connections started firing away and I began to see the world as something I was a part of, something separate and yet connected, a vast and exciting world of discoveries. Everything is new to Cora! Sometimes I can't get over that. She just keeps growing and stretching, everything is getting bigger--even her little hands and feet are noticeably wider and longer, more able to grip things and walk upon.

Nearly every morning when she wakes up, one of us will get up and bring her into our bed, where I will nurse her back to sleep. She snuggles between us, looking infinitely secure and so small next to her 6'2" dad. This morning I got up for a glass of water, and when I crept back into bed I had one of those moments when it all becomes so clear for the briefest of instants: this is my life. Those two people are my family, the ones I love more than anything else in the whole world, would break to pieces without, wait for at the end of a long day, look for in the mornings, want to hold and squeeze and cuddle. In the quiet of the morning, while light crept through our curtains, I looked at them while total gratitude ran through my veins. This is our life: three linked people--two grown-ups and a little helix of us sleeping softly between.

As I watch Cora grow into her adamant self, I find myself reflecting more on my own childhood. If I stop and ask myself to define the first memories I associate with being a kid, it is so easy--immediately I remember exploring the woodsy acreage on Bainbridge Island, the stomping ground of my first 12 years. We had the immense luck of having a 40-acre, forested backyard owned by a reclusive rich lady who never used her land. I think I spent the majority of my childhood exploring the mossy interior of those woods, making booby traps and keeping a nature log and writing bad poetry. I often set out with my sister or my friends, but what stands out the most are the days when it was just me and my dog Valley, snuffling through the land looking for fairies and gnomes, listening to the birds, making bouquets of trilliums (until I learned, to my horror, that they can take up to 15 years to first produce a flower, and, if you pick the bloom, it can take up to seven years for it to flower again), and feeling the world roll at my feet. These spaces of solitude continue to define happiness for me. I think I have been searching for that place ever since we left. I also remember getting into a lot of mischief with my sister, stealing stuff and making prank calls, trying to smoke tea bags and almost burning down our backyard. And while there are countless memories of adventures with my family, going camping on Orcas Island or Shi Shi beach, walking on rocky beaches, or helping my mom cook in the kitchen, those aren't the times that stand out first and foremost.

All the time and attention that we pour into our children is for the purpose of helping them thrive on their own. We spend their young lives trying to fill them with our love, hope with all our might that they will search for experiences that mirror the love and trust and security we hope they felt as a member of our family. And if they are able to wander into the world by themselves and feel a sense of awe, and give something of themselves that comes from a place of security, then perhaps we can credit ourselves a little bit for that. Or perhaps it is entirely to our children's credit.

I waffle on this point because we all have such different experiences. What breaks one bolsters another. What defines one is only peripheral to another. I mention this because, interestingly, sometimes my most vivid memories of my parents are negative ones. They are the breaks in the fabric of an idyllic existence, ones that began to unravel everything until our perfect home on the island became tattered and worn out, exhausted and dangerous. It has taken 30-plus years to revisit those tough times in my head and look at them with adult eyes, to understand the network of stuff that slowly broke everything down. So I wonder if there is some kind of cadence to it all, a process by which we filter through all the good and all the junk and arrive at a balanced equation that defines us. There was obviously a huge amount of good in my childhood, so many moments that surprise me when I remember them, so much dedication and kindness, so much attention and care. I give my mom and dad great credit for the parents they wanted to be. They put effort into it. I have huge respect for that.

And with the tough stuff, I got perspective. For better or worse, it makes me, me. Admittedly, when I lie on my pillow and look at my slumbering baby and incredible husband, and think about everything around me, from the memories that are so vivid they are like fixtures, to the walls of our house to the food in our refrigerator, I feel...lucky. I remember closing my eyes and wishing wishing wishing.

It is all so deeply personal. That's what I continue to arrive at. We all have our own stories: stories that we tell ourselves, stories that happened to us, stories where we become the heroic protagonists of our own fate--stories that define us in ways that inspire our present and shape our future. And at some level, we can't help comparing ourselves to each other, because that's what we do. As human beings, we look inside and then look out, and somehow place ourselves somewhere on that trajectory. Some people are so fascinated by the similarities and differences that exist between people or countries or solar systems that they make it their life work to analyze them. Some focus on our psychology, studying inner realities and drawing connections to outer experiences. Some, like my husband, are artists, have trained a huge section of their brain to memorize lines and light, shape and form, and they create new worlds for us to enter quietly, helping us play and imagine.

For some reason, I like to tell stories. Was it because my mom used to tell me I was a good writer, would sit with great attention while I read her my stories about squirrels and rabbits in the woods? Is it because I liked the quiet time, or because I have escapist issues, or because I like to study people? When do our dreams begin, and what starts them? What is the energy that draws us to our life work, and what sustains it?

Tea and chocolate...and Friday

I love tea. Earl Grey is my favorite, I'm pretty much addicted to the taste of bergamot. And I recently picked up some Ritter Sport hazelnut chocolate that tastes especially good when paired with a hot cup of tea. It's Friday and we just had an awesome morning with one of my most supportive and sweet friends, and her little daughter. We went to the Seattle Children's Museum and enjoyed all the fun activities there. Cora took a nap this morning and is sleeping again now...She seems super tired after this long week of activities and sleep disturbances while I try to figure out her schedule.

Tea and chocolate. Yum. I love that Cora is fast asleep, growing her brain and her body while I decay mine slowly with sugar and caffeine. I have enjoyed a complicated struggle with caffeine, and wish right now that I was drinking full-strength coffee and buzzing about with a million fresh ideas, instead of soaking up whatever small strain of caffeine is left in my decaffeinated tea, and waiting for it to give my brain a midday boost.

I'm looking forward to the weekend and a few good adventures. Cora spent 10 minutes kissing and waving goodbye to her Dada this morning, and I know she will be all abuzz with excitement when he comes home tonight. She has a different personality with him, gives him tons of wrinkled-nose smiles and giggles, and joyfully watches him perform silly antics for her. This morning we waved frantically at him through the living room window while he did a dance on the sidewalk, kicking up his feet and clicking them together, then spinning around in fabulous ballet form. And then she just quietly settled down and started playing with her animal flash cards and books while I did the dishes. She loves to come in to the kitchen and hang on my leg and then take small journeys to the cupboards and shelves, rummage about the drawer with all the metal lids, and then head back for another leg snuggle.

I have been thinking about my MFA program, and voice and character development and all the writerly things that we studied and thought about intensely for two years. It is so much easier to write about little Cora, a tangible little character in my house who wanders around and laughs and cries and waves and kisses. But I am excited to start writing short stories about quirky characters' lives and adventures. It occurs to me that I should know my fictitious characters as well as I know Cora; I should imagine what they were like as children, the environment where they grew up...it's important, it's formative. It sticks with us. It's something I've thought about loosely before, but it honestly hasn't struck me with such force until now. What I am thinking is that I had better be in love with my characters enough to write about them. Even if I hate what they stand for, I should love them as human beings enough to write carefully about them, to research their first words and first crushes, elementary and high school memories.