Category Archive

You know you have been away from your blog too long when your information is no longer saved in the comment area of other people’s blogs and you actually have to log in to Flickr to upload pictures. I think the original date on this post was June 19. I got as far as the title. I had planned a multi-volume series of stories and observations, and it was going to be possible to have multiple volumes because I was going to post at least 4 times a week. Right. At least this is only…what, week 4? There is still time to catch up. Except that I can’t remember the stories and observations meant to make up volume 1. Oh well.

A brief recap of the past few weeks:

• I am happy to report that my sister located a Wee Hairy Beastie at the Ikea near her house in California.
• Mia turned 6 months old. How has half a year already passed?
• My neighbor Robin was in a car accident involving a train two weeks ago. She is in intensive care in Charlotte. Unfortunately that’s all I know–she was flying to Arizona for some sort of detox/retreat and never made it to the airport, but since she is single and has no family around here, the news got back to her local friends and neighbors quite slowly. Another neighbor was planning to visit her this past weekend–I am still waiting for news from her. Please send positive thoughts Robin’s way.
• Mia had her first “vacation” at my friend Nancy’s cottage in the NC mountains. She attended her first square dance, saw her first swan, and put her feet in a real mountain stream for the first time. She also got lots of quality time with Nancy, who was one of my undergraduate professors, and who, for as long as I’ve known her, has always kept her distance from small children. But since she doesn’t have children of her own, she has sort of claimed me as her adult child and declared herself one of Mia’s many “surrogate grandmas.” Mia was out of sorts most of the weekend due to a nagging fever from her 6-month shots, so I was worried–as I said, Nancy doesn’t do little kids. But she surprised me by picking up my baby and comforting her and playing with her and rocking her. And her initiation into grandma-dom was thorough–there were lots of tears and whining and lots of snot being wiped on her shoulder, and also lots of snuggling and sleeping in her lap. She seemed to love every minute of it. Nancy’s friend Janet, who was my undergraduate advisor, came up on Saturday, and Nancy’s mother Helen (age 86), who used to teach religious studies at a small Raleigh, NC college and is still sharp and full of herself, joined us for dinner on Saturday.  A good time was had by all.
• My sister Charity visited from California for a week. She hadn’t seen Mia since her birth, and they bonded. Charity also completed the remaining square of Mia’s animal collage. (I am almost embarassed to link to the picture because it makes it very clear that I can’t use a level.) While Charity was in town, the kid and I got to spend lots of time with our family, which included a trip to the park for a very hot (but very cute) photo session to commemorate Mia’s half birthday. This is my favorite photo of the evening (it deserves more than a link):

• And finally, I spent several consecutive days cleaning and organizing my house. I donated so many clothes to Charity (the capitalization is intentional–before the bags ever made it to the Goodwill they were raided by both of my sisters) that I now have almost 100 empty coat hangers. Anybody need some coat hangers? All of my clothes are in MY closet, which means my kid actually has her own closet now, and there is actually empty space in it. I know it’s not perfect, but the BEFORE was so hideous, no camera ever got near it–you’ll just have to take my word for it that this is indeed a vast improvement. All the cleaning and organized was inspired by the new love of my life, my new vacuum cleaner, which is so amazing that I’d vacuum the animals with it if they’d let me. In fact, I’m going to go vacuum now.

I started audio Italian lessons last weekend using a program designed for the car. The lessons are short and conveniently divided so that a 10 minute drive to Target is equivalent to one lesson. There are four CDs, each an hour long, and the first CD is called the “On Ramp to Italian.” It consists of 12 “miles,” each one made up of basic pronunciation rules, word gender rules, and introductory vocabulary. Most of the vocabulary is stuff one might see while driving–car, truck, bicycle, motorbike, forest, sign, building–as well as several adjectives one might use to describe these things. For example:

Il mio motorino e veloche.
My motorbike is fast.

La mia casa e gialla.
My house is yellow.

Ci e una donna grande.
There is a big woman.

My favorite word so far is bicycle–bicicletta. It’s pronounced “bitchy-clayta.” Fun! Ci e una bicicletta! La mia bicicletta e bella! E la bicicletta nuova o vecchia? Just say it: bicicletta, bicicletta, bicicletta. Admittedly I’ve used it incorrectly (Nice signal, you bicicletta! The speed limit is 55, not 22, Bicicletta!) but it’s just so much fun to say, and way less offensive than many of the other naughty words I repeat on a regular basis.

I have listened to the the “On Ramp” three times and feel fairly confident that if I had to describe a mode of transportation or explain that I’m going to the store (Vado al negozio!), I could easily do so. But when I confidently popped in CD 2 this morning and geared up for my first actual lesson, the merda hit the ventilatore. Gone were the slow talking teachers from the “On Ramp” CD (we’ll call them Bella* and Bruto**); replacing them were numerous native Italian speakers who talk entirely too fast, and a narrator who also talks entirely too fast. I was crushed. I have only just gotten my mouth to wrap around all the vowels in l’aeroporto, and now they are asking me to participate in conversations? Now I am blu.

*Beautiful!
**Ugly!

Thursday night is yoga night in my universe. I practice yoga at home on my own a few days a week, but on Thursdays I get to go to a studio class and study with Martha, who knows the poses very well, is very humorous and lighthearted, and looks a great deal like Joan Baez. Martha’s is a level 2 class (you must complete at least one 12 week session of level 1 before moving on to level 2, and I have been in a level 1 class since last January), and while I’m technically prepared for level 2 there is much about it that intimidates me. There are only three levels of practice at my studio, not counting the “special” classes (wall ropes, Tai Chi, gentle yoga), so people with all degrees of experience and ability are in level 2. By level 2 standards I am a beginner.

One of the foundations of yoga is patience. The teachers at my studio constantly remind us that it isn’t the “nature” of yoga to force ourselves to do things that are uncomfortable, hurt our bodies, or trouble our minds with feelings of inadequacy when we haven’t yet perfected a posture. According to Martha this is what our jobs are for. But in spite of my continued efforts to be patient and gentle with myself, I tend to be a bit competitive, and I worry when I can’t keep up with my classmates, even when some of my classmates have been practicing in level 2 for months or even years. Also, I have always been one of those students who wants the approval of her teachers; even now, and even in yoga class, I want the teacher to be pleased with my work. With those things in mind, know that tonight’s yoga class was, at least inside my head, like being in 7th grade math class with the wrong notebook, wearing leg warmers and velcro tennis shoes, and putting problem 8 up on the board even though the teacher asked for the solution to problem 18. I swear to Krishna, the music playing in the background was a new age version of “Please Don’t Go Girl.”

The trouble started with Warrior III. Warriors I and II are cake–both feet are involved–but Warrior III requires balancing on one leg while imitating an airplane. Even on a good day I don’t have good balance (I run into door frames, people!) but my allergies are raging thanks to the false spring we’re experiencing here in the South, and my ears are stopped up. It’s a wonder I can stand on two feet, but one? I made a noble effort–I did–but while I was falling into the wall I glanced up and saw the other 25 people in the room doing their Warriors, and they all looked like a field of perfect Ts. I’m ashamed to admit that I wasn’t thinking, “Be patient with yourself.” I was thinking, “Sonofabitch.”

But it didn’t end there. The very next segment of our practice was supported handstand, and yes, it’s exactly like it sounds: you stand on your hands with your legs straight up in the air while someone holds your waist to keep you from crashing to the floor. I’m sure we all did it as kids, and it was so easy then, but it’s been quite some time since I was a kid, and I don’t know if I really did handstands as a kid, and might I remind you that I felt like a 7th grader tonight and 7th graders do not have grace or agility. Anyway, we were working with partners, and the girl next to me opted to work with her husband (whatever!) so I ended up latching on to two women who were already well into the routine when I arrived. By the time my turn rolled around everyone else in the room had already done his or her handstand (one man did the pose unsupported! in the middle of the room!) so they all got to see me attempt to fling myself–specifically my legs– into the waiting arms of my assistant. If you’ve been paying attention, and if you remember 7th grade at all, you know that my legs never made it, and after two tries I curled up into a ball and began whimpering things like, “My locker is jammed” and “My mom made me wear them.” It was not my best yoga class.

Another foundation of yoga is positivity–looking at what you’ve accomplished and building on it rather than dwelling negatively on what you haven’t yet mastered. It would be really easy for me (and so 7th grade) to pout and say that the only positive thing about tonight’s class was that I didn’t fart in Downward Facing Dog. But I can do better than that. I can do this:

Don’t ask how many tries it took to get this right for the picture, and if you practice yoga, don’t look too closely or you’ll notice that my arms are slightly bent and my feet are too far apart (again with the imperfection!). I’m just glad my body will do this. It’s being vertical that causes me problems. But you’ll be glad to know I’ve regained contact with my older and wiser self, and I’m steering my pouty “can’t do” attitude back toward patience and forgiveness. Along those lines I’ve settled on a focus for tomorrow’s practice: walking upright without running into door frames. Don’t you just love yoga?

It’s one in the afternoon on a Monday, and I am sitting at my kitchen table eating Beefaroni and White House apple sauce. Suddenly I’m in third grade again, and I’ve managed to convince my mom that I really needed to stay home from school. I am eating at my grandparents’ table listening to “All My Children” on the TV in the next room, and I can hear my grandfather’s paper rustling from the brown recliner as he reads in front of the picture window. I’m thinking if I’m just quiet enough I can dip my spoon into the brown crockery sugar bowl and have a taste without him hearing me. He does hear me, though, and gives me a Little Debbie oatmeal pie instead. Life is good.

I really am eating Beefaroni and apple sauce, and the kitchen table I’m sitting at did belong to my grandparents. The crockery sugar bowl is resting on my sideboard. I’m sure “All My Children” is on, but I’m watching taped “Ellen” shows from last week instead, and my grandfather and his recliner have been gone for more years than I’d like to remember. I wish I really did have a box of oatmeal pies. Nostalgia is a powerful drug, isn’t it?

I took a “scheduled sick day” today because a) I am exhausted and needed a mental health day and b) I have a paper due tomorrow night and didn’t want to stay up until 2 a.m. finishing it. I have only worried about my students once, and that was much earlier when I was half asleep and had no control over my thoughts. Now I could care less, although what I like to call the Substitute Aftermath will no doubt be waiting for me tomorrow: papers stacked all over my desk, trash on the floor, desks out of order, unfinished assignments. I envy people who can take days off from work without having to make detailed arrangments for someone else to do their work in their absence.

Oh well. At least I will go to bed tonight at a decent hour with my paper written, and I’ll get to enjoy all the benefits of a four-day week. Life is good.

Going to the beach for some R&R. Be back next week.

Every night around 9:30 I take Suzanna to the field behind our house for one last sniff, one more pee, one final look around the property for bunnies and baby opossums before we all fall asleep to “Will and Grace” at 10. While Suzanna carries out her nightly patrol, I stand at the edge of the cul-de-sac that borders the field and marvel at the lightning bugs. There seem to be millions of them. They float in midair. They hover in the treetops. They appear in my periphery, or right in front of me, and before I can completely focus on them they have extinguished themselves for the moment, only to light up again a few feet away. From a distance they create an awesome light show. The dark trees seem to sparkle, and the field–just a hollow expanse of black at this time of night–is like an extension of the sky filled with hundreds of twinkling stars. It’s a wonderful way to end the day.

According to the official encyclopedia entry, there’s a perfectly logical scientific explanation for fireflies and their amazing lights. For me, though, it all boils down to communication. They’re out there in the dark talking to each other. For them the darkness is literal, natural, a part of their normal routine. But we could take some cues from them, since we humans encounter our own fair share of darkness on a regular basis. In our case it’s not necessarily literal, and it’s certainly not natural, but it’s darkness all the same. It’s poverty and hunger. It’s heartache and rejection. It’s sickness and death. It’s anger and resentment. Sometimes it doesn’t even have a name, but we feel it covering us anyway, like those shadowy Dementor things in the Harry Potter books. We may not be able to put a finger on it, but we can feel it sucking us dry.

So what does all of this have to do with fireflies?

I once read an article about how people who hike the Appalachian Trail use flashlights to signal to each other at night. They click on and off to alert other hikers of their positions; they send messages, like Morse code; they reach out across the blackness with their lights. It’s what the fireflies have been doing all along, and it’s something we all could learn to do, even in our metaphoric darkness. How much brighter would the world be if people, like tiny little lightning bugs, became creatures who speak to one another with light?