Taking Summer Down

Summer sang its last song weeks ago, but we weren't quite ready to say good bye.  "We" as in the garden and me.  I was still picking a few tomatoes and the vines had lots of small green ones.  I can never beat to tear down the garden until we are well and truly done.  Tuesday night will bring a hard freeze and so today, Bell and I started taking down the garden.

We only got the tomatoes vines pulled up and detangled from their cages, but over the next few weeks we will find time when Jack is home to pull up the cages and remove the wires holding them upright. Still, just this giant pile of vines was progress.  I found my first horn worm of the season today - I hate to kill them because they are so beautiful, but they are death to a tomato patch.  Not quite ready to think about winter, we planted some bulbs for spring and watered the fruit trees.  Somehow, this led to playing in the mud in November.

Last fall, we threw the birdhouse gourd that didn't mature over the fence into the Cat Kingdom.  At the end of summer Jack discovered that there was quite a birdhouse gourd patch growing back there.  They never got watered but they flourished.  Oddly enough, the grasshoppers left them alone even though the gourds we planted in the yard were devoured.

Bella and I trooped out with a basket and pruners and came back with several good sized gourds.  Now they just have to dry for a few months.  While we were across the fence, we walked on down below the lake and pulled down armloads of grapevines for fall wreaths.  Bell had never pulled down grapevines before.  Some were too big, as fat as my arm, but even the skinny ones went all the way to the tops of the oaks and elms.  Now they are piled on the picnic table since it got dark before we could shape them.

It was gorgeous out today, but Tuesday will be in the 40s.  I am not yet ready for the cold.  For today, I will be thankful for my outdoor girl who tagged along by my side as we did fall things.

Jack's child, Sarah's child

The combination of genetics and environment has created a bizarre creature in our house.  That school pic this year is my child.  The child who free hands pictures that look traced is Jack's.  The child who is okay with mediocre spelling grades because spelling is unimportant on most days is also Jack's.  The child who melt's down when she is tired or who has a fit when the spelling (that unimportant spelling) is not a 100 ( because perfection is important ) is my child.

Today's child was a challenge to my meager two cups of coffee.  Probably there wasn't enough coffee on the planet.  Thankfully there was a dad, a phone call away, to talk reason into her.  

This is strange and macabre, but Jack and Bell collect bones, particularly skulls of animals.  After cleaning the bones forever, they study their structure and have science conversations about species and why one animal is built this way and not that way.   This all seems slightly odd, but harmless.  These skulls are usually found in the pasture or near the lake.  Today, however, below the house, a coyote had been hit by a car.   Bell was furious because I woudln't stop and get its head.  On the way to school.  7:15.  School clothes.  40 degrees.  Dead coyote.  Absolutely not.

My refusal infuriated her beyond belief.  I was thwarting her interest in biology and that coyote was dead anyway and by the time we came home, some truck would have ran over it and crushed it.  

Here's the thing.  As ridiculous as her request was, her response to me was, well, just like me.  Stubborn.  Tenacious.

So I have been thinking today about personalities and quirks and how most of us fall a bit short of perfect.  Bell is a handful when she is tired and makes me crazy, but I am pretty sure I make Jack nuts at times, and I know I made my parents crazy.  My students undoubtedly would like to change a few of my quirks.  

I need others' patience and support, their love.  But that means I have to practice patience too, and not just my eccentric child, but with those 90 other children, their parents, the annoying woman in Walmart last week.

  A lack of coffee really isn't valid.  Neither is technology that didn't work all week.  I need to work a bit harder at that patience, no matter what.  Even when dead coyotes show up.   

Bella Day

Last fall the first grade went to Tiger Safari near Tuttle .  The first grade sans Bella who woke with a stomach bug that day.  We promised our own family trip there but unemployment brings money woes and the day trip kept getting pushed back and back and back.  We had honestly planned a trip in the spring but Jack was working a crazy schedule  and always seemed on call.  Ten there was the back injury.

Chaos abounds for us.  Jack is back at work but is still limping and slow going so we haven't planned any real trips yet, but Bella really needed a special day.  She has not handled everything with grace lately, but there were a few moments in the past few weeks, when she handled disappointment at least stoically if not gracefully.  Jack had Sunday off and though it was chilly, we packed the kid in the car with a cryptic "we have errands to run" and "shoe shopping. ". Instead of complaining, she just nested in the back seat and cheerfully sang along with Jack and the radio.

We had hoped she wouldn't notice we were going to Tiger Safari until we actually pulled in, but she saw a billboard about a mile out, and cleverly figured out my plan.

We braved the wind and trooped from enclosure to enclosure watching lemurs and monkeys play, tigers and lions spat, and bears chew on their toes.  Bell got to do a bit handling at the end - she says lemurs are crazy soft.

We really don't take too many days and just blow them off this way.  They are expensive, but not just in money, but in time.  Until soccer is over, we are on the go every Saturday and during the week, we barely keep our heads above water.  But sometimes, it just needs to be about us being together.  Those days of rest are important, but a day together feeds the soul. 

Stage Center

I haven't been able to get off the merry go round just yet.  In the past week, we had something "extra" every single day.  There were soccer practice nights, a day with a double header game, Halloween, a night at Rubliee's to have dinner with visiting family from Washington . . . Just crazy busy.  As much fun as it is to let Jack turn my kid into a zombie, the highlights of the week were the soccer game and the 2nd grade musical.

Friday I slipped out of class, leaving my charges with another teacher, and joined Jack and Rubliee to watch Bella in the musical about classic rock.  She was a fifties girl with her rolled up jeans and bobby socks, canvas sneakers, white button down shirt with rolled up sleeves, and a scarf in her hair.  She was in the center of the risers, second row - just where we could see her boppin' and swaying with the tunes.

The first day of music practice, Bella came home in a dither because she had a speaking part in the Elton Parsely show.  Me: Elton Parsely?  Bella: Yeah, you know he had a song about shoes made of blue thick leather.  Me:  oooohhh.  Blue Suede Shoes, possibly?  Bella:  yup.

Bell got to be a crazy daisy for the song Tutti Fruit  and then introduced a Surfin' USA.  When it was her turn to be in front of the mic, she just hopped up and belted out her lines, dancing and singing with a grin.  It was so much fun to watch her and all the other itty bitty rockers.  Her school is blessed to have an amazing music teacher.

The whole thing was just joy - I see so much of us in Bella.  She can be a hellion, but she also loves an audience.  It never occurred to her be nervous or to have stage fright.  There was no hesitancy, no pause.  Just performance.  This is my child.  I know most of you don't see this part of me since I didn't do theater, but when I started college, I really wanted to be a professional speech maker.

Watching these kids on stage made me wonder when people began to get stage fright.  Only one of these little kids seemed upset, though a few seemed shy.  It was such a departure from a performance I witnessed in my AP class that morning.  My AP kids are in groups and each group will be teaching a Romantic poet and analysis of three of that poet's works.  The first group went Friday and one boy was just miserable.  It was the whole shaky voice, no eye contact, repeating what had already been said, stumbling over words fiasco.  The rest of group was calm and professional.  I felt sorry for him, though I was fairly sure some of his trouble was a lack of preparedness.

But when we do we learn to fear performing? When does an audience become the enemy instead of a gift letting us shine?  I require my kids to get up and do something, even if it is just explain a sentence, several times a year and it is just terror for many.

I hope my kid never loses the magic dust that let's speaking and holding court for a few moments be fun, a high all of its own.  It is a gift, but it is also a craft to be honed.

Today the merry go round is still in full swing.  We should be out the door to church, but are sneaking away for a surprise trip to Tiger Safari.  Bell missed her field trip there last year thanks to a stomach bug and has been begging to go for a year.  We have told her we are going shoe shopping.  I think this will be a pleasant surprise.  I hope all of your personal merry go rounds have some sweet pauses this week and if you have a chance to shine, you do so spectacularly.

Long Live Romanticism

In my AP Lang class, we have been reading the American Romantics and Transcendentalists and I  keep referring to songs that have the same themes and motifs.  These poor babies just look at me like I am too far gone.

When I told Jack that they knew nothing good (not to belittle their music, but goodness, they need to branch out), we decided to undertake their music education starting now.  Last week I opened by having Pink Floyd's "Time" playing and the lyrics up on the projector when they walked in.  (I am sure their will be lots of revisits to Carpe Diem in the coming weeks.). Pink Floyd?  Five out of twenty had heard of them.  Only two had heard them, actually listened to a song.

Today, we will be reading Emerson's "Self Reliance" and they get to listen to Oingo Boingo's "We Close Our Eyes."  Next week when we sample some Walden, it is Talking Heads and "Flowers."  And then we will talk about irony.   The darkness of anti-transcendentalism will be next and then the gritty realism of the Civil War and new frontiers.  Not sure what music will happen then or when I get on my Kate Chopin feminism kick.  Jack thinks spoken word poetry should be done with Cake.

If there is some vital song that I need bring to their world, by all means, share!

It is unclear if I will be deemed cool or just weird, but I do remember Ann playing some They Might Be Giants in our Joe Campbell class.   Ann was such an amazing teacher - she let me have opinions.   Then she taught me to defend them.

  Ooh, Giants need to go in the list.

Whirl

My life is this weird series of being a single parent weeks divided by learning to be a wife again weeks.  So far it has gone fairly smoothly, perhaps because I remember how hard it was when we did this before.    On and off for our first three years, Jack worked in Guthrie during the week and came home on weekends.  I purely hated it.  We weren't very good at being married yet - I remember thinking that marrying Jack was such a disservice to him, that we surely had to find our footing soon lest we end up miserable.  When he was away, I did my own thing, cooked as I pleased, watched what I wanted.  And when he came home, it was hard to switch into being a partner.  I know I feared him leaving for Guthrie angry so I tiptoed around anything that might displease him.  I loved him doing those rooms in Guthrie, but looking back, it wasn't a good way to begin a life.

This time around, we seem to be on more even ground.  Maybe we learned each other enough that I am confident in us, but when he is home, we slide right back into real life fairly well.  We miss him when he is gone, but I am too busy to fuss.  

I desperately needed fall break and wish I weren't already sucked back into the merry-go-round whirl that is school and home.  So far, as long as I can make it a week, Jack comes home again and I get to share, both the joys and the stress.  He thinks November will be a long month of him being mostly gone - I am already telling myself, "two months until Christmas Break," and then I realize it is only two months until Christmas.  Talk about whirl.

There are plenty of bright spots - and there is plenty of stress.  This is what I read in your blogs, reading that you are trying to find that balance, that way through.  It is supposed to lovely here the next few days - if you can, stop and breathe. Look around and breathe some more.  The whirl will still be there, but draw on those who help you, draw on that strength within.

Anchor

I know that a girl is supposed to be "daddy's girl," and I know when I was
little, I was, but as an adult my mama is probably my best friend.

I love to be with my dad - I can think of a lot of moments that are perfect.  But I get my love of words, cooking, and weird sense of humor from my mom.  It is she who taught me to love James Thurber and how satisfying it can be to make a perfect roux.

Really, mom is that best friend and glue for all of us.  After dinner on Sundays, dad goes outside to work on the farm, but mama sits at the table carrying on several different conversations with her tribe of children and grandchildren until she weaves them all into one.  Dad comes back in for the finish and dessert, but mama has anchored us through the afternoon.

She is in the hospital this week with gallstones and pancreatitis.  And of course this happened when she was searching for a new doctor.  She started out in Duncan, but her condition worsened and Thursday, she was moved to Baptist Integris where there are specialists.  The doctors there were planning on doing an endoscopic surgery yesterday to remove gallstones - they might have been blocking a bile duct, but that did not happen.  As of yesterday, her enzyme numbers were getting better so surgery has been postponed until next week, in hopes that her pancreas can heal a little before the gall bladder is removed.  My mom is also diabetic which always complicates everything.

I don't drive in the city.  This country mouse barely drives  at all.  Yesterday mom was knocked out for tests but might be awake today and I think at least two of siblings are going up.  I will try to meet them in Chickasha and ride up with them.  I saw her Thursday when she was in Duncan's hospital and she seemed so vulnerable.

It has been a long week of worrying for mom- I know we are all thinking of a relative who spent months in the hospital with the same issue and almost died over it. It has been a long week of not being able to call her and hear about her week.   I have missed her emails, book discussions, and political analysis. I think this is the first time since we moved (other than being snowed in at Christmas) that I have felt cut off from the family.

I am reminded this week of how fragile life is and of the strength so many of you must gather up each day, just to keep moving forward.  My circle of friends, you have parents with dementia and Alzheimer's, you have broken bones, you have lost spouses and parents, you have faced cancer and fear and sickness.  Yet, you put on faith, the armor or faith, and walk it out.  You walk out of the darkness and into the sun again and again.