Autumn

I know how boring it can sometimes be to listen to the exuberant exclamations of people in love with the weather. But bend an ear my way just for a second because it's one of my favorite times of year (stiff competition with spring). Cold, crisp, sunny and clear. Leaves are dropping, frost is forming, temperatures are falling, and we're eating some of the best Gala apples we've had all year. We pulled out an extra blanket for the bed at night and even turned on the heat. Oddly, despite my constant protestations as our beautiful summer visibly waned, I love it. I can't wait for the bursts of color and the baked dinners, and a reason to make pie.

Cora and I made cookies this morning and met friends for a play date at the zoo. Our children zoomed around at full speed while all the other animals seemed to be in pre-hibernation mode. The two 850-pound bear brothers were fast asleep on their rock perch, one with his enormous head resting on an extended paw. The otter den was filled with two, entwined otters with eyes tightly shut. The lions were piled atop each other and snoozing in the sun. An elk was asleep on the ground in such a pose as to look, well, permanently there. The fox was in his den and the wolf was nowhere to be seen. Only the giraffes and shiny-eyed eagles were up and about. The kids' cheeks were rosy from an abundance of giggly shrieks and fresh air.

In other news (maybe our only news these days?), we're still here, still living in an unsold house. And I'm writing. Just tipped over the 80-page mark, so that's something. I've been getting up at 5:15 and brewing a huge pot of tea, then tiptoeing downstairs and writing until Cora wakes up and we all gather together for breakfast. I'm a little tired today, but I'm excited. I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Happy Autumn!

Books and cooks and stuff

This is going to be a comically short post, I'm sure. Cora has been sleeping now for 40 minutes, which means she's about to wake up. I'll be in the middle of a sentence and will just publish with whatever I've got. It'll probably be peppered with spelling errors and randomness.

So, I'm writing a short story that I started over the weekend, and I am enjoying it so much. My mom came over today morning to watch Cora for awhile, and I headed up to the neighborhood coffee shop and had a cookie and a hot cup of blackberry tea, then got lost in my little tale. I think I'm about midway through. It is really odd how therapeutic it is to write, especially something other than a journal entry. Either my brain benefits from the work and concentration, or my psyche benefits from the escape...or maybe a little of both. I left the shop feeling happy, and my head felt clear.

Also, I am searching for a really, really, really good book to read, the kind that is so fabulous you can hardly wait to pick it up, and you're totally disappointed when you're too tired at night to read anymore, so you turn out the light and close your eyes, but end up creeping out to your living room couch for just a few more quiet pages, until suddenly you realize it's like 3 a.m. and you're completely wasted. I have been struggling with The Far Pavilions for about a year and a half now, and have read several books in between. I picked it up awhile ago hoping it would go back to being the incredible saga it was for the first 600 pages, but it's not. It's just a yawningly long-winded story that needs to wrap up eventually. At least that's how I feel right now, maybe I'll be convinced otherwise when I'm through. Still, it's the kind of experience right now where I look at the 300+ pages still to go, and I just kind of set it down reticently, wishing I had the gumption to keep ploughing through so it would just be over already.

I was at the bookstore the other day and saw a bunch of new, contemporary fiction, and it occurred to me that maybe I've become one of those readers that just really likes contemporary stories. I like the way the books look so clean and blue (have you noticed there's so much blue in the covers these days?) and filled with references to water. I tend to like novels that are told from a whole bunch of perspectives, little linked tales that weave together into a final, satisfying story. Hmm. I also loved Shadows of the Wind, which I read a bit ago. So maybe I need a contemporary novel. But no, that's not really true, either...I read Pride and Prejudice the other weekend and enjoyed that, too (even though I used to claim I hated Jane Austen, which was a silly thing to say), and I think Jane Eyre might still be one of my favorite books. I also just finished Possession, which I've read many times and still totally love. I'm craving a bit of a mystery, with some good romance mixed in, something crisp and clean but with satisfying soggy places, too. Anyway, if you're reading this and you would care to suggest one to me, even an old classic that I should reacquaint myself with, I would be grateful.

I am always surprised by how short the days are in a northwest December. It's only 4 o'clock and it's getting dark. It's hibernation time. I need a good book, a good blanket, a pot of tea, and a pair of slippers. I'm already thinking about dinner, which feels odd--the day slips by and we have to get out during the three beautiful hours in the afternoon, otherwise we've missed it, the window has closed.

Good grief, I'm still writing, which means the wee one is still sleeping. Good for her. Maybe I'll ramble for a second longer. I've been enjoying cooking, and it's because I like cooking winter food. I like baking squash and potatoes and chicken, making big pots of soup with all sorts of random stuff in it, baking a quick batch of cookies or muffins. I've decided I need more recipes. My sister gave me the recently updated Joy of Cooking, and it has a million ideas, of course (including a really good mushroom barley soup and a shepherd's pie), but not necessarily a lot of recipes with kind of a different twist on things, like spicy quinoa or a healthy creamed soup without a ton of cream. I'd like to find a recipe book that was into "pinches" and "pats" rather than asking me to pull out my little fan of measuring spoons all the time. That's why I don't follow very many recipes, I get impatient.

There's a cat lurking outside my window, stealthily searching for some little rodent to tumble around with, and it reminds me of how much fun it's going to be to have a toddler in the spring and summertime. I am going to plant a small garden for us to tend, and we'll be able to play tag on our lawn, and I'll even be able to dress little C up in a swimsuit and set up the sprinkler. Right now, there are all these mushrooms dotting the grass, and clumps of dog poop from my mom's dog (grr), and I am having a tough time letting her go out there and wobble around. I know parents need to achieve that fine balance between curiosity and safety, allowing their children to properly explore their world. And I'm totally OK with that, I'm just not cool with my wobbly little kid eating random fungus and moldy canine contributions. So, we've obviously got some work to do on our yard before it becomes the outdoor extravaganza that I hope she'll come to enjoy.

You know, my ridiculous little baby is actually sleeping the afternoon away. I am very proud of her. I'm going to go back to my story and see how far I can get with the next scene.

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.