This film, based on the true story of the artist Isamu Noguchi's life, focuses on his mother, Leonie.
An American woman, she lived until she was sixty years old, a free-spirited woman of her time who had a brief affair with the poet who was Isamu's father.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Loving
Love comes in so many flavors.
Love of friends is a smörgåsbord, sweet to savory, of conversations and discoveries.
Love of family is yeast bread right out of the oven with butter on it, the fragrance of home.
Romantic love is creme brûlée with raspberry sauce--or maybe pie in the sky.
I just watched my last class in Sketchbook Skool. I've gotten behind on doing the assignments, but I've liked every class. The final was my favorite because it was all about road trips. Teacher Danny Gregory took a cross country car trip and showed us different ways to capture travel memories in maps and sketches and words. He gave us the daunting assignment of sketching a personal journey in lines and colors.
One of Danny's stops was Hope, Arkansas, Bill Clinton's birthplace.
I've been to Hope. There's not much to see there. But the very name of that town brings up a memory for me. If you don't have a taste for sappy stories, you might want to just stop right here and go fold the laundry or something.
Seven years ago, in the Hope train depot (turned visitor's center) I met a biker named Mike who lives in a barn in Georgia. His hair in a ponytail, he was wearing overalls; I was wearing the incomparable air of road freedom. Nothing on that road trip felt "normal"--everything was road trip crazy, free, daring, and good. We rode through the Great Smokey Mountains on the Harley, stopped and danced roadside, poked around antique stores.
The map of meeting Mike would go from Hope to Gatlinburg to Beale Street in Memphis where we listened to the blues. A few days later, I'd go north to Virginia, Cape Cod and Maine, wending through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Mike south to Georgia where he was building his barn. (He would send me a cell phone and we'd talk every day for two months.)
Then, after the leaf-extravaganza was over, I drove to Georgia to see Mike and to celebrate Thanksgiving with Carlene and my kids and two grandsons. Mike made Thanksgiving dinner for my family, even had a petting zoo in his back yard for Jackson and Marcus. On that day, dancing to a song called "In Spite of Ourselves," I thought we were Forever.
I stayed from November to February, then drove home to Texas. In March, I drove back to Georgia for two more months.
When we packed the Mini the last time, we both knew it was the last. We stood in his driveway, both crying. " You're the love of my life," one of us said. I drove home to San Antonio, sad to the bone.
I resumed writing groups and started new ones, and I felt (and still feel) that this life and this work and my Texas friends all add up to Home.
But....
Isn't there always a "but" in every journey story?
...After seven years, we saw each other again on this last trip to Georgia. All the reasons we went our separate ways are still there, including--This is my home; Brown Mule Farm is his. But as we all know, love--however weird or improbable it may seem to onlookers--brings out parts of ourselves that don't come out to play in most places.
Two weeks ago, when Mike and I drove to one of his favorite antique barns and had lunch in Athens, those parts I thought were safely packed up and wrapped in plastic came out again, just for a visit.
We're not riding off into the sunset together into Happily Ever Afterwards. But we've laughed again at things nobody else would find funny, and we've disagreed about the same things we always disagreed about. A week ago, we talked on the phone as I was driving through Louisiana and remembered how much fun we'd had dancing to Cajun music there.
How can I draw all this for Sketchbook Skool homework? How do you draw a rear-view mirror and keep it real? What kind of inks do you need to draw the thin curvy backroads as seen from the back of a Harley?
Being with Mike reminded us both of where our journey together began--and the euphoria of falling in love, two crazy strangers, in a town called Hope.
Love of friends is a smörgåsbord, sweet to savory, of conversations and discoveries.
Love of family is yeast bread right out of the oven with butter on it, the fragrance of home.
Romantic love is creme brûlée with raspberry sauce--or maybe pie in the sky.
I just watched my last class in Sketchbook Skool. I've gotten behind on doing the assignments, but I've liked every class. The final was my favorite because it was all about road trips. Teacher Danny Gregory took a cross country car trip and showed us different ways to capture travel memories in maps and sketches and words. He gave us the daunting assignment of sketching a personal journey in lines and colors.
One of Danny's stops was Hope, Arkansas, Bill Clinton's birthplace.
I've been to Hope. There's not much to see there. But the very name of that town brings up a memory for me. If you don't have a taste for sappy stories, you might want to just stop right here and go fold the laundry or something.
Seven years ago, in the Hope train depot (turned visitor's center) I met a biker named Mike who lives in a barn in Georgia. His hair in a ponytail, he was wearing overalls; I was wearing the incomparable air of road freedom. Nothing on that road trip felt "normal"--everything was road trip crazy, free, daring, and good. We rode through the Great Smokey Mountains on the Harley, stopped and danced roadside, poked around antique stores.
The map of meeting Mike would go from Hope to Gatlinburg to Beale Street in Memphis where we listened to the blues. A few days later, I'd go north to Virginia, Cape Cod and Maine, wending through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Mike south to Georgia where he was building his barn. (He would send me a cell phone and we'd talk every day for two months.)
Then, after the leaf-extravaganza was over, I drove to Georgia to see Mike and to celebrate Thanksgiving with Carlene and my kids and two grandsons. Mike made Thanksgiving dinner for my family, even had a petting zoo in his back yard for Jackson and Marcus. On that day, dancing to a song called "In Spite of Ourselves," I thought we were Forever.
I stayed from November to February, then drove home to Texas. In March, I drove back to Georgia for two more months.
When we packed the Mini the last time, we both knew it was the last. We stood in his driveway, both crying. " You're the love of my life," one of us said. I drove home to San Antonio, sad to the bone.
I resumed writing groups and started new ones, and I felt (and still feel) that this life and this work and my Texas friends all add up to Home.
But....
Isn't there always a "but" in every journey story?
...After seven years, we saw each other again on this last trip to Georgia. All the reasons we went our separate ways are still there, including--This is my home; Brown Mule Farm is his. But as we all know, love--however weird or improbable it may seem to onlookers--brings out parts of ourselves that don't come out to play in most places.
Two weeks ago, when Mike and I drove to one of his favorite antique barns and had lunch in Athens, those parts I thought were safely packed up and wrapped in plastic came out again, just for a visit.
We're not riding off into the sunset together into Happily Ever Afterwards. But we've laughed again at things nobody else would find funny, and we've disagreed about the same things we always disagreed about. A week ago, we talked on the phone as I was driving through Louisiana and remembered how much fun we'd had dancing to Cajun music there.
How can I draw all this for Sketchbook Skool homework? How do you draw a rear-view mirror and keep it real? What kind of inks do you need to draw the thin curvy backroads as seen from the back of a Harley?
Being with Mike reminded us both of where our journey together began--and the euphoria of falling in love, two crazy strangers, in a town called Hope.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Antique-ing
Imagine: getting up every single day for fifty years to hang out with old stuff: dishes, postcards, clocks, stuffed animals, silver, and crocheted tablecloths.
Charlott, owner of Charlott's Antiques on Austin Highway, has been running that store since she was 33--50 years ago--and says she loves every day of it.
Oscar and Mary were regulars there, I could tell. "I just love spending hours here and looking at things that remind me of my mother and grandmother," she said. "Everything in here is a blessing that way."
Oscar was a character. Before he introduced me to his "better half," he spent half an hour giving me ideas for what to do with the chicken coop I'm looking at for a coffee table. "Paint the floor green and fill it up with decorations," he said. "Hens and roosters and eggs, things like that. Put a glass top on it and some legs and it will be a real conversation piece."
Mary--with her radiant face and perfect skin--had trouble navigating the aisles, but when we talked, she lit up telling me about how much she loves antique-ing.
Charlott, owner of Charlott's Antiques on Austin Highway, has been running that store since she was 33--50 years ago--and says she loves every day of it.
Oscar and Mary were regulars there, I could tell. "I just love spending hours here and looking at things that remind me of my mother and grandmother," she said. "Everything in here is a blessing that way."
Oscar was a character. Before he introduced me to his "better half," he spent half an hour giving me ideas for what to do with the chicken coop I'm looking at for a coffee table. "Paint the floor green and fill it up with decorations," he said. "Hens and roosters and eggs, things like that. Put a glass top on it and some legs and it will be a real conversation piece."
Mary--with her radiant face and perfect skin--had trouble navigating the aisles, but when we talked, she lit up telling me about how much she loves antique-ing.
Riding
I'm seldom a passenger in a car, almost always the driver. Yesterday I was driven to lunch by my firefighter son in his yellow rescue rain jacket.
Elena was sleeping when they arrived, so we sat in the parking lot to let her get her nap out, then had a delicious Beto's meal, just right for a rainy day.
On the way home, we went to Bird Bakery, then stopped by the Doll House shop on Broadway. Elena wasn't particularly interested in the doll houses, but she loved those German-made animals, and she could name them all in Spanish. I'd planned to drive to the doll hospital in Seguin today, but the Doll House people said they could re-string my three loose-jointed dolls--and just a few blocks from home.
Later, as we were sitting on the floor painting a cardboard crown, Elena said, "Remember Nana?" Yes, I said. What made you think of Nana? "Because her is a really good good person," she said. "Does Nana know I go pee pee on the potty?"
Last night, I met a friend for another Beto's meal, just as delicious as lunch! My birthday continued with conversation and posole--a wonderful day!
Before bed, I watched the three-episode mini-series, South Riding, ending with these words by the school--mistress to the graduating students of her school:
"Those of you who are leaving will find the world a lot more complicated than it looks. As you get older, you know fewer things for certain, not more. You've heard me say before, Question everything. Question authority. But open your ears, your eyes, and your hearts, too. Above all, enjoy your lives and live to the full. Please don't ever be afraid. The future belongs to you...."
Elena was sleeping when they arrived, so we sat in the parking lot to let her get her nap out, then had a delicious Beto's meal, just right for a rainy day.
On the way home, we went to Bird Bakery, then stopped by the Doll House shop on Broadway. Elena wasn't particularly interested in the doll houses, but she loved those German-made animals, and she could name them all in Spanish. I'd planned to drive to the doll hospital in Seguin today, but the Doll House people said they could re-string my three loose-jointed dolls--and just a few blocks from home.
Later, as we were sitting on the floor painting a cardboard crown, Elena said, "Remember Nana?" Yes, I said. What made you think of Nana? "Because her is a really good good person," she said. "Does Nana know I go pee pee on the potty?"
 |
| Elena in Daddy's rain jacket |
 |
| Lady Liberty washing dishes? |
 |
| First, you paint your crown. Then you glue on sparkles. Then you ride in your chariot. |
Before bed, I watched the three-episode mini-series, South Riding, ending with these words by the school--mistress to the graduating students of her school:
"Those of you who are leaving will find the world a lot more complicated than it looks. As you get older, you know fewer things for certain, not more. You've heard me say before, Question everything. Question authority. But open your ears, your eyes, and your hearts, too. Above all, enjoy your lives and live to the full. Please don't ever be afraid. The future belongs to you...."
Monday, November 3, 2014
Aging
Every writing group is unique. Sometimes everyone is in a jovial mood, other times more mellow. Each person brings a certain energy, then it all gels in some unpredictable way. I don't often write about that, but I always notice it and love the alchemy of different people turning a few hours into gold.
Last night's meeting was very meaningful for me. A theme emerged in the timed writings, then continued in the writing each person had already written--as if we were already on the same wave length before we all showed up. (Or did I superimpose a theme after the fact? I don't know.)
It's as if Aging and Death were characters in the wings last night, and each of us poked at or pulled back the curtain in a different way.
For a timed writing prompt, I asked the question, "What age are you in your mind?" The range of answers (all of us between sixty and sixty-six) varied from 25 to 95! That was a surprise, so we followed that trail, talked about why.
Hearing their candid answers and saying my own, it occurred to me that we are all bearing witness to what it feels like to grow older. Don't we all wonder what will happen to our journals when we die? Aren't we at an age when that could happen, hard as it is to imagine the world going on without us?
One is re-reading her many journals and typing a few pages for each writing group--which gives us a glimpse into her life and voice of the year in which those pages were written. While ostensibly an exercise in mining old journals to decide what to keep and what to destroy, it seems to me that taking the time to re-read and listen to what her former selves have to say to her (and us) right now is a kind of life review, standing back and listening to what insight the younger self might impart.
Sometimes, what one writer describes what we all have felt but never put into words. When one wrote about aphasia (her frustrating inability to think of the word she's after), we all knew exactly what she was talking about. After a certain age, reaching for a word and not finding it sets off an alarm: "What if this is the beginning of Alzheimer's?"
When one person writes about the fall-down-gut-punch of a heart break, it's like hearing a piece of music we all know. One of us (not me) said, "I feel ageless." I do, too--sometimes. Maybe that's because we carry all the younger parts around inside these sixty-something selves.
And then there's the unmentionable character lurking in the wings: Death. It once was a hypothetical figure in the distance; now it's closer, even if decades away.
One of us--not present last night--is a grief counselor. One is a hospice social worker who asks her dying patients to tell her their love stories. One has been to four family funerals in a little over a year. One is a drug rehab counselor; recently, two of her patients were in a terrible crash and one of them died. As for me--I just returned from my Uncle David's memorial service in Atlanta and came back to San Antonio to realize all over again that my friend Julianne is gone, absolutely gone, even though a text from her is still on my phone.
Janet--what a great kindness!--went to Julianne's funeral for me, since I couldn't be here. At the end of writing group, I listened to Julianne's eulogy on Janet's cell phone. Her son said exactly what she would have liked. He loved and admired his mother. Even though he's a Baptist preacher, he didn't make it "too religious"--and she would have liked that.
I had an eerie thought at the end: "I want to call Julianne and tell her what a perfect memorial it was."
Death may bring its own lessons for those who are dying. But to the living, the lessons keep showing up, too. We wish we had done more, said more, been more attentive, more present. It was at the moment of saying that very thing that her son showed most emotion: "There are so many things we wish we'd said that we never said."
Last night's meeting was very meaningful for me. A theme emerged in the timed writings, then continued in the writing each person had already written--as if we were already on the same wave length before we all showed up. (Or did I superimpose a theme after the fact? I don't know.)
It's as if Aging and Death were characters in the wings last night, and each of us poked at or pulled back the curtain in a different way.
For a timed writing prompt, I asked the question, "What age are you in your mind?" The range of answers (all of us between sixty and sixty-six) varied from 25 to 95! That was a surprise, so we followed that trail, talked about why.
Hearing their candid answers and saying my own, it occurred to me that we are all bearing witness to what it feels like to grow older. Don't we all wonder what will happen to our journals when we die? Aren't we at an age when that could happen, hard as it is to imagine the world going on without us?
One is re-reading her many journals and typing a few pages for each writing group--which gives us a glimpse into her life and voice of the year in which those pages were written. While ostensibly an exercise in mining old journals to decide what to keep and what to destroy, it seems to me that taking the time to re-read and listen to what her former selves have to say to her (and us) right now is a kind of life review, standing back and listening to what insight the younger self might impart.
Sometimes, what one writer describes what we all have felt but never put into words. When one wrote about aphasia (her frustrating inability to think of the word she's after), we all knew exactly what she was talking about. After a certain age, reaching for a word and not finding it sets off an alarm: "What if this is the beginning of Alzheimer's?"
When one person writes about the fall-down-gut-punch of a heart break, it's like hearing a piece of music we all know. One of us (not me) said, "I feel ageless." I do, too--sometimes. Maybe that's because we carry all the younger parts around inside these sixty-something selves.
And then there's the unmentionable character lurking in the wings: Death. It once was a hypothetical figure in the distance; now it's closer, even if decades away.
One of us--not present last night--is a grief counselor. One is a hospice social worker who asks her dying patients to tell her their love stories. One has been to four family funerals in a little over a year. One is a drug rehab counselor; recently, two of her patients were in a terrible crash and one of them died. As for me--I just returned from my Uncle David's memorial service in Atlanta and came back to San Antonio to realize all over again that my friend Julianne is gone, absolutely gone, even though a text from her is still on my phone.
Janet--what a great kindness!--went to Julianne's funeral for me, since I couldn't be here. At the end of writing group, I listened to Julianne's eulogy on Janet's cell phone. Her son said exactly what she would have liked. He loved and admired his mother. Even though he's a Baptist preacher, he didn't make it "too religious"--and she would have liked that.
I had an eerie thought at the end: "I want to call Julianne and tell her what a perfect memorial it was."
Death may bring its own lessons for those who are dying. But to the living, the lessons keep showing up, too. We wish we had done more, said more, been more attentive, more present. It was at the moment of saying that very thing that her son showed most emotion: "There are so many things we wish we'd said that we never said."
Voting
Tomorrow is, officially, election day.
It feels like every day is election day. With at least ten incoming emails a day from my party of choice, I'm experiencing election fatigue. The day after every election, we start up on another.
I'm going to vote tomorrow for my party, but not with the passion and hope I felt in the last two elections. I'm not sending twenty dollars for a chance to meet the president. I'm not signing petitions or liking anyone on Facebook. I'm not putting a bumper sticker on my car.
I've lost interest in the whole national football game (and I borrow that analogy from a friend--it's perfect!) No more pom poms, no more cheerleading, just one quiet vote, for whatever it's worth.
Someone on NPR said that many young people are "political agnostics." I guess that's true for a lot of us older people too. I prefer one party over the other, but not with the zeal of a true believer anymore. The money machine, the morals machine, the fighting and attack ads--it all adds up to something too big, too unwieldy, too mean-spirited to know how to get into the conversation.
Every time I turn on the news, I hear more political fighting. I'm bored with it all. I'm thinking of changing my email address so that I can get off everybody's lists.
In the fifties, as I remember it, elections were dignified and private and patriotic. I doubt that my parents even knew how their friends voted. When President Kennedy was assassinated, the whole nation grieved--not just the Democrats. We were, back then, all Americans.
I wish we could return to being Americans who vote for our choice, then move on to something else, let the winner do his or her best.
As I was writing this, I got an email from Team Wendy. I'll vote for her, but not with a megaphone or money, just with a quiet little check mark beside her name. The players may think Team Politics is the only game in town, but the voters have a lot more to do to make the world better than to attend, 24/7, to the outcome of popularity polls and the personal failings of the players.
It feels like every day is election day. With at least ten incoming emails a day from my party of choice, I'm experiencing election fatigue. The day after every election, we start up on another.
I'm going to vote tomorrow for my party, but not with the passion and hope I felt in the last two elections. I'm not sending twenty dollars for a chance to meet the president. I'm not signing petitions or liking anyone on Facebook. I'm not putting a bumper sticker on my car.
I've lost interest in the whole national football game (and I borrow that analogy from a friend--it's perfect!) No more pom poms, no more cheerleading, just one quiet vote, for whatever it's worth.
Someone on NPR said that many young people are "political agnostics." I guess that's true for a lot of us older people too. I prefer one party over the other, but not with the zeal of a true believer anymore. The money machine, the morals machine, the fighting and attack ads--it all adds up to something too big, too unwieldy, too mean-spirited to know how to get into the conversation.
Every time I turn on the news, I hear more political fighting. I'm bored with it all. I'm thinking of changing my email address so that I can get off everybody's lists.
In the fifties, as I remember it, elections were dignified and private and patriotic. I doubt that my parents even knew how their friends voted. When President Kennedy was assassinated, the whole nation grieved--not just the Democrats. We were, back then, all Americans.
I wish we could return to being Americans who vote for our choice, then move on to something else, let the winner do his or her best.
As I was writing this, I got an email from Team Wendy. I'll vote for her, but not with a megaphone or money, just with a quiet little check mark beside her name. The players may think Team Politics is the only game in town, but the voters have a lot more to do to make the world better than to attend, 24/7, to the outcome of popularity polls and the personal failings of the players.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Playing
For the last few months, I've been collecting dolls--some from Carlene's house that I used to play with when I was little, some from thrift shops, some online.
Most of them are 8 inch Madame Alexander dolls, but there are a few no-brand dolls. This one I brought home from Carlene's was dressed in a Girl Scout uniform, but the firefighter outfit I had bought on eBay fits her perfectly.
She's standing atop the little oak desk that used to be Day's. I cut her hair to make her appear more boy-like--as my collection only had two boys so far.
This morning, I tried to stay awake to listen to the whole Super Soul Sunday online, but slept the morning away. Finally, I feel rested!
I did hear a snippet of it, in which Marianne Williamson said "We should all be beginners at something." To be a beginner rekindles our sense of play and wonder.
Here's the doll I bought in Opelika at an antique store called Angel's. Brand new in the box, for $12!
Most of them are 8 inch Madame Alexander dolls, but there are a few no-brand dolls. This one I brought home from Carlene's was dressed in a Girl Scout uniform, but the firefighter outfit I had bought on eBay fits her perfectly.
This morning, I tried to stay awake to listen to the whole Super Soul Sunday online, but slept the morning away. Finally, I feel rested!
I did hear a snippet of it, in which Marianne Williamson said "We should all be beginners at something." To be a beginner rekindles our sense of play and wonder.
Here's the doll I bought in Opelika at an antique store called Angel's. Brand new in the box, for $12!
 |
| Angel from Opelika |
Seeing
For the past five weeks, I've been taking an online drawing class. I should say "taking" in quotation marks because I haven't been keeping up with the assignments. But I will catch up. I will.
From my first "successful" drawing (measured by someone asking me to copy and sign it--not by its actual quality) I have pretty much just been watching the videos. It's a little hard to draw and visit and travel all at the same time, at least in a concrete way.
But watching people draw and show their drawings has inspired me, nevertheless. I'm fascinated by the differences in the way the five teachers sketch and talk about their work. I love seeing the more experienced students' drawings.
Drawing, like writing, is about seeing. It's so easy to get caught up in the constructs of our minds and make abstract statements about things, how things are. To draw or to write clearly, we have to look at one thing at a time, really look, without comparing it to something in our minds. To see the isness of a thing, what it is.
I'm learning this morning to capture gestures and body language with pencils. The teacher is advising us to look at the person and draw quickly, capturing the movement with our pencils on paper. I'm watching her do that with two live models. I'm observing the fluid movements of her pencils and pens and brushes.
I'm remembering a quotation from Joseph Conrad:
"My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see. That--and no more, and it is everything."
From my first "successful" drawing (measured by someone asking me to copy and sign it--not by its actual quality) I have pretty much just been watching the videos. It's a little hard to draw and visit and travel all at the same time, at least in a concrete way.
But watching people draw and show their drawings has inspired me, nevertheless. I'm fascinated by the differences in the way the five teachers sketch and talk about their work. I love seeing the more experienced students' drawings.
Drawing, like writing, is about seeing. It's so easy to get caught up in the constructs of our minds and make abstract statements about things, how things are. To draw or to write clearly, we have to look at one thing at a time, really look, without comparing it to something in our minds. To see the isness of a thing, what it is.
I'm learning this morning to capture gestures and body language with pencils. The teacher is advising us to look at the person and draw quickly, capturing the movement with our pencils on paper. I'm watching her do that with two live models. I'm observing the fluid movements of her pencils and pens and brushes.
I'm remembering a quotation from Joseph Conrad:
"My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see. That--and no more, and it is everything."
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Changing of the plans....
One of the many things I love about children is that they shake up my plans and show me ways to do things better.
Nathan, for example. "Can I have these marshmallows?"
"No, we're going to make Rice Krispy treats."
"But I don't like Rice Krispy treats, I like marshmallows. I just want you to play Legos with me."
"Okay," I say--relieved that he's getting what he wants and I'm off the hook for making treats nobody is likely to eat anyway.
Then he opens the secretary and looks at my ten Madame Alexander storybook dolls that will ultimately be Elena's. "Are these all for my sister?" he asks. I'm afraid I detect a note of jealousy (what can I collect that a boy might like?) so I stop what I'm doing and introduce him to each one.
"That one is Elena!" Elena says, pointing to the one in the red dress we named Elena.
Nathan wants to play with them. I hadn't planned on letting little ones play with them, but I tell him that he can pick one to play with, just him, because they are fragile and he knows how to be careful with fragile things.
He picks Dorothy and spends the next hour enacting the story. We run around the house finding stuffed animals and less-fragile dolls to play the parts of the other characters. He casts Harriet (a doll from Nana) with my voice-over as the Good Witch.
I had planned to clean the house and dress up like a witch to get ready for the party, but I let go of my plans for perfection and enjoyed the magical moments of Now instead. By then, cleaning was not an option anyway--as Nathan's Legos and Elena's toys were scattered all over the floor.
Later, as he was skating through the house on socks, he told me that my kitchen floor was a mess--which it was, covered with marshmallows and leaves and assorted toys. Children tell you the truth, unvarnished.
But sometimes the definite truth of one week is abandoned the next. For a couple of months, Nathan has been saying he doesn't like his picture taken, so I've tried to hold back. Yesterday, he had a sudden change of heart and wanted me to take lots of pictures of him.
Elena is her own hundred-percent-Elena self. When her other grandmother came, Elena wanted to show her around the house and apartment. She opens the apartment refrigerator and asks Tita, her other grandmother, "What would you like to drink? We have juice and water and these things Yenna likes..." (pointing to canned sodas.)
The house never did get spruced up; I'd barely gotten unpacked from my trip. I never got around to putting on my witch's hat or make up. But no one noticed or cared.
When Will donned some awful plastic rotten-teeth Margaret had sent for the party, the kids took it all in stride, no big deal. When he attempted to give Veronica a kiss, she seemed politely less than eager to kiss back:)
Kids and grown-ups notice different things, I guess.
Nathan, for example. "Can I have these marshmallows?"
"No, we're going to make Rice Krispy treats."
"But I don't like Rice Krispy treats, I like marshmallows. I just want you to play Legos with me."
"Okay," I say--relieved that he's getting what he wants and I'm off the hook for making treats nobody is likely to eat anyway.
Then he opens the secretary and looks at my ten Madame Alexander storybook dolls that will ultimately be Elena's. "Are these all for my sister?" he asks. I'm afraid I detect a note of jealousy (what can I collect that a boy might like?) so I stop what I'm doing and introduce him to each one.
"That one is Elena!" Elena says, pointing to the one in the red dress we named Elena.
Nathan wants to play with them. I hadn't planned on letting little ones play with them, but I tell him that he can pick one to play with, just him, because they are fragile and he knows how to be careful with fragile things.
He picks Dorothy and spends the next hour enacting the story. We run around the house finding stuffed animals and less-fragile dolls to play the parts of the other characters. He casts Harriet (a doll from Nana) with my voice-over as the Good Witch.
I had planned to clean the house and dress up like a witch to get ready for the party, but I let go of my plans for perfection and enjoyed the magical moments of Now instead. By then, cleaning was not an option anyway--as Nathan's Legos and Elena's toys were scattered all over the floor.
Later, as he was skating through the house on socks, he told me that my kitchen floor was a mess--which it was, covered with marshmallows and leaves and assorted toys. Children tell you the truth, unvarnished.
But sometimes the definite truth of one week is abandoned the next. For a couple of months, Nathan has been saying he doesn't like his picture taken, so I've tried to hold back. Yesterday, he had a sudden change of heart and wanted me to take lots of pictures of him.
Elena is her own hundred-percent-Elena self. When her other grandmother came, Elena wanted to show her around the house and apartment. She opens the apartment refrigerator and asks Tita, her other grandmother, "What would you like to drink? We have juice and water and these things Yenna likes..." (pointing to canned sodas.)
The house never did get spruced up; I'd barely gotten unpacked from my trip. I never got around to putting on my witch's hat or make up. But no one noticed or cared.
When Will donned some awful plastic rotten-teeth Margaret had sent for the party, the kids took it all in stride, no big deal. When he attempted to give Veronica a kiss, she seemed politely less than eager to kiss back:)
Kids and grown-ups notice different things, I guess.
Mike's Street Rod
After he built it custom designed the interior, he had the body painted with many coats of metallic orange and silver--so it shines.
The body is a 1951 Chevrolet Belair hardtop on a 1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo chassis. The grille comes from a 1957 Corvette, the light-up hood ornament from a 1951 Pontiac, and the tail lights from a 1959 Cadillac.
The hubcaps come from a 1959 Dodge Lancer and the custom bucket interior includes a 1960 Impala steering wheel.
Here you have a man who gets up every morning excited about a day of working on his projects--building a car or adding pieces and new buildings to his Brown Mule Farm. If anyone is traveling through North Georgia and wants a great big taste of the Fifties, you should visit the Brown Mule Farm.
 |
| He built this beautiful Shell station before the barn. Inside, there's a barber shop, a soda fountain, working jukeboxes, and all kinds of Fifties memorabilia. |
 |
| Here I am, sitting on a "sofa" he made out of another old car. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)