About My Girl

Admit it: sometimes you look at the world, all its misguided citizens, and you think you might mess up your kids, that they might turn out bad despite the unit blocks and the bedtime stories and the Pirate Booty. Okay, maybe you're not ready to admit that you're afraid your monthly "grumpy week" might have more impact than the time it was raining on picnic day, so you set up a full-on tent in the dining room and ate your sandwiches by flashlight. Maybe you're not ready to confess to worrying that, despite your faithful adherence to your own no-spanking rule, simply having said "I want to hit you" that one time might be enough to spoil the apple, turn her into that scowling cashier at the grocery store that nobody likes or that strange lady who pushes a still-boxed Cabbage Patch Kid around in a buggy.
I guess I'm ready--to say that I worry. A lot. If you know me, you know parenting is only one of a rotating list of horrors that keeps me up at night. It started with razor blades in the Halloween candy and, well, I just can't stop.
The thing is, though, I've got a girl in my house who reassures me with her humor, her fine attention to detail, her sense of justice, and her strange wisdom. She made that painting in the top photos a few days ago, and when I remarked that she doesn't tend to include a lot of detail when she paints, she said, "I figure painting is about color. If you want detail, why not just draw?" Huh. I think I paid fifty thousand dollars for an MFA that amounted to not much more than that breezy insight. (That's her self-made pincushion--found it sitting on my sewing table this morning.)
And Earth Hour--flash-wrecked photos of which you see here (though we got artsier, with candles and whatnot, as the hour ticked on)--thrilled her to no end, this girl who told me on the walk to school that once I buy a bicycle (which she's a bit afraid I'll fall off of, since "older people" sometimes forget how to ride if it's been "like fifteen years"), we'll be able to save "energy, as in gas, and our own energy, too," and who recently burst into tears when she heard about the death penalty. Such a clearly wrong act, perpetrated by the good guys, simply did not compute.
How will she stay this happy if she is also this smart, this intimate with the world and its complicated workings? How will she stay cheerful and sane? Right now I can say this: despite everything--even, maybe, despite me--I think she will. I believe she will.

The Melting

Annabelle had a half day on Wednesday, and the weather outside was near 50 degrees in the afternoon (that magic number, 50, that makes a Mainer swoon come March). We walked to a diner near her school and ate a nutritionally-spurious lunch of huge, crispy onion rings served with warm barbeque sauce, reading our new book, Witch Child, at the table while we waited.
After we ate we went to the fabric store. Annabelle scored some lovely, chalky-blue, organic-cotton yarn for her renewed crochet habit, and I got seersucker and linen, two of my garmenty favorites. Anyone else feel like a kid in a candy store in the garment fabric section? I've never sewed a piece of clothing anybody would actually want to wear, but I think that's about to change. It's gonna be a draw-string summer. (The red tear drops are from my Presque Isle bargain basement trip, but I had to include them--aren't they dreamy?)
We stopped off at the music store and ogled the electric guitars with their glittery, lacquered, womanish curves. We each picked our top three, in case we ever become rock stars.
Then we walked home, talking all the way about witches and birthdays and Halloween and Nanny and Grampy and how we can't wait to get back to the beach. It was one of the happiest afternoons I've had in months.

I think it's the melting. And as you can see, Sophie says the fabric is dullsville, but she's keeping her eye on the disappearing snow. Good dog.

Hjem Away from Home

This here's my latest canvas piece--a custom request for a yellow, Danish version of the hot-pink, Swedish number I did a while back. ("Hjem" means "home.")

I'm popping in from the North Woods (Aroostook County, Maine!) to say hey--Mark and Jen are playing Rock Band in the living room, and Jen's shall-we-say passionate drumming is making it hard to think, so if this post makes no sense, blame her--and the cold medicine. Yup. I'm sick again, this time with a full-on, swollen-faced sinus misery. Sheesh.

The weekend has been fun if a bit complicated. Remember the "sad extended family stuff" I mentioned a couple of weeks back? Well, it amounted to visiting my parents in different houses for the first time yesterday. I wish I could explain what it was like--I bet many of you already know. I can say that it was sad, of course, but also, somehow, I'm talking more--and more intimately--with everyone in my family. It's like there was something between us, something unsaid that created a persistent silence for years, and now that barrier has evaporated. Lots of the things getting said are painful, but there's a new sense of connection and honestly that might, frankly, make us more of a family than we've ever been. That's my hope anyway.
On a lighter note, Jen (my best friend since 9th grade) is a brand new sewer, and I love her enthusiasm over all the bits and pieces. I love being the one who can point things out and answer her questions--a big surprise since 18 months ago a sewing machine seemed to me as complicated as a jet engine. We went to our favorite dingy, mess of a bargain basement store, where the saleswomen have amazing mile-high, Aqua Net bangs. They also have a mind-blowing selection of close-out fabrics at super-cheap prices. I got something very mod/Scandinavian that I'll take pictures of when I get home.

Until then, my dears, thanks again for all your wonderful recent comments. I feel very lucky.

Who? Whosies!

We have a winner, folks--Whosies! These photos do not, of course, show her hoop, which would represent a superheroic heap of mojo I simply do not--even at my best--possess. No these horrid, shadowy, taken-in-bad-light photos are of my most recent custom order and the first ever to include a felt tricycle.
I don't mind telling you, tricycles are harder than dogs. Way harder. From now on, I charge double for vehicles of any sort. Just kidding! I'm actually pretty darn pleased with this little trike.

Yeah, so...picking a winner kind of broke my heart, folks, because your comments were so lovely and hopeful. If I had enough time and enough felt and enough skin on my fingers, well, you know. Anyhow, I'm so glad all of you popped your heads up, and I hope you will again. It's nice to know you're out there. Really nice.

You guessed it--

I psyched myself out a little with all the "100th post" nonsense. I thought I ought to have something pretty impressive to share--a wonderful new project, sparkling photos. Well I got none of that, my friends. Just the regular stuff: dirty hair, a sink full of dishes, a kid with a head cold. And a little mustard-colored hanging house.I wanted to say something deeply meaningful about nearly a year of blogging, from the days of crafting willy nilly with a barely-functioning machine, trying to find moments for creativity between faculty meetings and paper grading, flash-photography and a readership of one (hi, Mom!) to these days, these past nine months of city-on-the-sea bliss, full time (well, you know, besides making school lunches and folding the laundry) writing and making, a sense of focus and purpose and freedom, and--most importantly--the real friendships that are developing here, some of them as tentative as the crocuses Jen is finding in her yard these days, some already astoundingly intimate despite the fact that we will likely never share a cup of tea.

I think you know, though, how it feels, what it means. So there is only the gesture of thanks left to offer, and here it is: if you would like to win a custom portrait, either a house portrait or a family portrait (winner's choice), leave a comment on this post. The only caveat is that--because these portraits take considerable hours and because my life is somehow busier than ever--you'll have to be patient, allowing me to work on it as I can, no kvetching. ;-) I will close the comments (if I can figure out how!) and select a random winner on Friday morning, right before I go out of town for the weekend (Ready for us, Players?!). Include your email address, so I can contact you about the details. I wish I could do this careful, intimate, loving work for each of you, but I know it will be wonderful to get to know at least one of you in this new way--making such a thing for your home.
And anyway, thank you--for welcoming me, for reading my thoughts and encouraging my work, for your humor and your advice, for the way you take time from your complicated, joyful, difficult, intense, and precious days to hang out with me a little. You're lovely.

Best Bits (a 99th post)

Not much making going on the past several days, what with the debilitating nausea and a surprise visit from my mom. (That sounds bad--I'm not equating my mom to nausea.) I thought I'd do something different--this is my 99th post, so, you know, 100 next time, and yeah--true to blog form, I'm gonna do a giveaway. Cooking something up. Meanwhile, I'm just going to show some pictures of the "best bits" of my apartment. I don't have a beautiful home--I rent a big, drafty, old place--but I have been able to make parts of it quite lovely, thanks largely to a delinquent landlord who'd rather let me do what I want than bother with me. This is okay, mainly, because it means I can paint everything turquoise.

Most of the bits I love come from thrift stores or result from painting old stuff white (a panacea as far as I'm concerned).

I used to think the "right" way to relate to a world of things was to hate stuff or at the very least to ignore it. It seemed very Zen to feel guilty about desiring any object, anything apart from food, water, shelter, love.

Then I read a book called The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World--yup, for my Ph.D. exams--and it changed my worldview entirely. This is a serious book--like hundreds of pages on Jesus and Marx and torture and war--but in it Elaine Scarry also argues that the healthy relationship with things is a real relationship, one that's honest and intimate.
This kind of love of things--one not based on greed, one that doesn't glory only in the getting--staves off pathology, all the weird buying and wasting we do when we aren't honest and awake with regard to our stuff.
I am intimate with these bright, shabby, colorful, useful, storied bits, and most of the time, like in a good marriage, that intimacy satisfies and means I don't need to look elsewhere for more bits. (That's right, Honey, I'm talking about you.)

I Heart Ralph Macchio (or How to Survive Intestinal Distress)

While I did manage to finish this family portrait for Jen of Quench Metalworks, the only other thing I managed today was not throwing up (a real feat) and watching The Karate Kid on hulu.
I know I can tell you--because we are friends--that this movie is my new (and of course my very old) happy place. In fact, it was helpful in many ways today--as a distraction, as a lovely, nostalgic return to my heartbreaking nine-year-old devotion to a skinny, poofy-haired boy with a Jersey accent and a heck of an out-of-nowhere, broken-footed, crane-type karate move, and finally, as the source of the mantra that's going to get me through the rest of this stomach virus: just insert "flu" in all the places where Mr. Miyagi says "karate":

Karate in here (points to head). Karate in here (points to heart). Karate never in here (points to belly).

Okay, I know he's pointing to his belt, but still, it's helping.

Sunshine Day

Hi, gang. I finished these little houses on a hill, and today we have the gift of sunlight, so I can share it with you. Mark is home (napping), and this morning we were able to go together to see Annabelle's novel study group perform their mini-play version of Tuck Everlasting. Annabelle was hilarious in cowboy hat, Girl Scout vest, and eye-pencil mustache as "the constable." She told me this morning, "Mom, even though Tree Gap is supposed to be in New York, I'm giving him a Texas accent." Good call. I think the audience especially enjoyed the bit where she ran her finger across her neck knife-style and said, "If'n you don't co-op-er-ate, yer a goin' to the GAL-lows." That kid's got a real future. As a constable.

I'm going to go walk the dog and soak up some vitamin D. My sister the nurse told me that Maine women have a D deficiency, and I'm sure it'll be twenty below again tomorrow (shakes fists at Mother Nature).

'Nother Snow Day, 'Nother Bluebird

For a girl who was home schooled until this past September, a snow day isn't the treat is was to those of us who sat in straight-backed public-school chairs, raising our hands and nodding our heads since kindergarten. In fact, after a week of February break and two snow days since, it's pure torture. She hopped out of bed ranting, and I don't mind telling you that we resorted pretty quickly to Toy Story. There's a lotta talk around here about "we don't have TV," but we do have a computer, my dears, and sometimes I make quite T.V.-like use of it.
For me, there was a bit of sewing and then, post-DVD, a lot of reading aloud (Pirates by Celia Rees, which turns out to be a little rough for a nine-year old and in need of a little editing but totally a page turner) and tromping through snow (Seriously? When is it meant to be spring?!) to the P.O. with girl and dog.
Tonight I'll finish up this little neighborhood in the night studio where it's waiting for me. Meanwhile, I'm trying to ignore its calls--you know how I do.