` Every Christmas season it’s the same. I drag my thirty or so eighth graders down to a public grade school in Cleveland to spread some holiday cheer. It’s the second poorest city in the nation; we’ve got our work cut out for us. We leave our land of suburbia and mini-vans where the biggest problem most of my students face is what color I-pod to own. Twenty-five minutes can take us far far away from our world. We enter the building through locked doors and a metal detector, shlepping our boxes of candy to make gingerbread houses and wrapped books to bring as presents. We always bring a snack. It’s a big deal for all concerned, and I forget each year how my head spins by the time all is said and done. There are always a few moments that dance on my heart and steal my breath. This year was no different.
I always say that life is about moments. Let’s face it, in a typical day I face drudgery, mundane chores, and the lather, rinse, repeat of the endless cycle, all the while pulling out my hair. We all do. But it is the moments, those brief glimpses in my classroom or my home, that make the whole day shine. Today it was the look on Diamond’s face when she learned she got to make a gingerbread house of her very own, and the playful exchange of Katie and Romello as she rubbed his brillo hair. But mostly it was Alexander. He tugged at my legs as I walked by his desk, like all of these students tug at my heart. I stooped to him to see what he wanted and without a word, he grabbed me in a huge hug. I think it was the wordlessness of it all that really got me. I’m not what anyone would term stoic or unbiased to start with. Straight news is not my game. And I don’t live in a world of quiet, that’s for sure. But in such a brief, silent encounter, with his skinny arms wrapped awkwardly around my legs, I definitely got the message.
Then it’s time to go and we leave in a whirl-wind of wrapping paper and smiles and hugs and high fives. We traipse back out through the metal detector and my kids are glowing from ear to ear. I get so discouraged, some years, leaving Junie B. Jones and Dr. Seuss to solve the problems while we hop back into our warm cars to head for home. It’s like emptying the ocean with a teaspoon, really. It seems like a really small gesture that will have little to no impact. Saving the world one gingerbread house at a time? It is a lot to imagine, but it’s all I’ve got. And for Alexander and I and this moment, it’s definitely enough.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Persephone's Fall
She sits where I sat on the hearth, roaring fire drying her kindling-straight hair. Could it be thirty years ago that this was I? My daughter flips her brown hair, the once sun-kissed blond tresses deepen as the weather plods now toward winter. And so do we. There is no mistaking, now, that the sun has slanted, her rays but half-inclined towards earth as the calendar marches on. Stubborn marigolds cling to life in my white buckets on the porch, and the red zinnia that my daughter planted so long ago blooms still in the back garden. All is not yet lost. But neither is there hope. They are frozen, the last blooms mocking summer and winter both. They belong in neither place these days. Like Persephone they cannot stay or move as they will. And the leaves are down, carted away by serpentine hoses that transform them into mulch. The grass has died, and the season’s first few frosts have tinged it brown. The light is stark and the clouds more grey. The winter is coming quickly now, like some spinning toy with centrifugal force that lumbers clumsily and fast.
Outside today, it is painfully clear through our reddened, chapped hands that winter is very close. Twenty-seven, forty-two, nineteen, HUT! I send her running. Stop on a dime at the garbage can. Turn and catch the ball. The football slips from my daughter’s grasp because her frozen hands are not nimble enough to receive it. And later I fumble Christmas lights atop the ladder, blue sky making way for the crispest of air above my head. The lake stays angry now, and the froth of its mood carries winds to those like us who live close-by. We will hole up very soon against the harshness of that cold.
I take one last trip around the yard to gather the trappings of summer and autumn for their winter sleep. The lawnmower and two-wheelers have the right idea: hibernation. My daughter and I would like that too. We talk often of calling in sick some day together to stay in bed and read our books. We would dine on chicken nuggets and bar-b-que chips while the wind and snow pound our windows, not caring if we dropped crumbs in the bed. Much later we would actually leave our fluffy-pillowed fortress and drink hot cocoa with giant marshmallows and sit by the fire we built in the afternoon light. We would wear our pajamas all day.
There is something here in this snuggling close, in making a fire and in craving the heat. There is something in this little girl drying her hair with the smell of smoke rich in her footie pajamas. There is something about the harshness of winter and the inevitability of its arrival that draws us in to one another and to the frothy tides of times gone by. There is something in my daughter. And in myself.
Outside today, it is painfully clear through our reddened, chapped hands that winter is very close. Twenty-seven, forty-two, nineteen, HUT! I send her running. Stop on a dime at the garbage can. Turn and catch the ball. The football slips from my daughter’s grasp because her frozen hands are not nimble enough to receive it. And later I fumble Christmas lights atop the ladder, blue sky making way for the crispest of air above my head. The lake stays angry now, and the froth of its mood carries winds to those like us who live close-by. We will hole up very soon against the harshness of that cold.
I take one last trip around the yard to gather the trappings of summer and autumn for their winter sleep. The lawnmower and two-wheelers have the right idea: hibernation. My daughter and I would like that too. We talk often of calling in sick some day together to stay in bed and read our books. We would dine on chicken nuggets and bar-b-que chips while the wind and snow pound our windows, not caring if we dropped crumbs in the bed. Much later we would actually leave our fluffy-pillowed fortress and drink hot cocoa with giant marshmallows and sit by the fire we built in the afternoon light. We would wear our pajamas all day.
There is something here in this snuggling close, in making a fire and in craving the heat. There is something in this little girl drying her hair with the smell of smoke rich in her footie pajamas. There is something about the harshness of winter and the inevitability of its arrival that draws us in to one another and to the frothy tides of times gone by. There is something in my daughter. And in myself.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Earth, Wind and Fire
He runs like the wind, this son of mine,
Faster than the cheetah we visited at the zoo, he claims.
I know one thing for sure:
He doesn’t have any interest in walking. He zips through this house
And my heart without pausing.
Sometimes he grabs Ritz crackers off the counter as he whizzes by.
And eats them as he runs.
It’s a wonder he doesn’t choke.
He burns like a fire, this child of mine,
Hotter than the reddest coals in my fireplace, I see.
I know one thing for sure:
He has a temper that cannot be quenched with
The largest fireman’s hose.
Sometimes I think his head will explode right off his body
And spew shrapnel in my living room.
It’s a wonder he doesn’t ignite.
He settles close like the earth, sweet boy of mine,
Gentler than the caress of the softest, whitest sand.
I know one thing for sure:
He is the one who will care for me when I am old.
He has an empathy beyond his age
And treats the creatures of the earth with care and love.
He is a fiercely loyal friend and brother
It’s a wonder his heart doesn’t burst.
Faster than the cheetah we visited at the zoo, he claims.
I know one thing for sure:
He doesn’t have any interest in walking. He zips through this house
And my heart without pausing.
Sometimes he grabs Ritz crackers off the counter as he whizzes by.
And eats them as he runs.
It’s a wonder he doesn’t choke.
He burns like a fire, this child of mine,
Hotter than the reddest coals in my fireplace, I see.
I know one thing for sure:
He has a temper that cannot be quenched with
The largest fireman’s hose.
Sometimes I think his head will explode right off his body
And spew shrapnel in my living room.
It’s a wonder he doesn’t ignite.
He settles close like the earth, sweet boy of mine,
Gentler than the caress of the softest, whitest sand.
I know one thing for sure:
He is the one who will care for me when I am old.
He has an empathy beyond his age
And treats the creatures of the earth with care and love.
He is a fiercely loyal friend and brother
It’s a wonder his heart doesn’t burst.
The Crackle of the Fire
It will be nine years, soon, since I bought this house. One of the selling points for me was the fireplace, nestled in the corner of an entire brick wall. But I have never lit a fire in this fireplace, until tonight. What is it about me that caused this to be so? How is it that something I wanted so very much could just get pushed aside for years and years? Maybe I waited so long because of my dad. As I was creating my life as a new homeowner, my dad was losing his. Although he drove by once, coming home from one of his many hospital stays, he never came inside. He died shortly after I married, and never got to see me in this home I have tried so hard to make. I’ve wished a million times that he could see my place, his grown up daughter as a mother now, and all of the intricacies of my life as a mom.
And tonight, it’s just another way to miss him. The crackle of the fire. That is what I forgot. I remembered the warmth and the smells. My olfactory memory taking me back to my days of girlhood, watching my dad in his lumberjack plaid pound the snow off of the logs before bringing them inside. It was the crackling sound that I forgot. Tonight the sounds take me back along the time/space continuum to the days that I was the little girl and my father the parent, crumpling newspapers and fanning the flames.
No matter how old I get I still cannot believe that it is ME stoking the fire and that the little girl drying her long golden hair by the fire is long-gone. I remember the Blizzard of 1978. One of my first real memories. I was seven, and the power was out as Lake Erie’s snow machine dumped over a foot of snow and killed the electricity for miles around. My dad hung a blanket on the family room door and spread our sleeping bags out in front of the fire. He stayed up all night to keep the fire going and keep us warm. I remember the pounding at the door, when the city’s police came to evacuate us to the shelter at the high school. My dad would not leave, and when the cop insisted, my dad brought him in to the family room where my two younger sisters were already sleeping. The cop finally understood and let us stay. My dad could keep us warm and fed no matter what the weather.
It is just so ingrained in my head, this picture of him in red flannel with raw hands to match. And the kindling and logs he split just outside the door and piled on the hearth. The way he took my sisters and I to the woods behind the elementary school to search for kindling, teaching us to snap the bigger branches in half across our knees. There was a horse-shaped tree we named Henrietta, and we would climb and ride as we gathered twigs. Of course you never realize it at the time, these seemingly little things that will become important and be the memories that you want to make for your own children. And it is impossible to know that in one glance and smell of a fire you can be simultaneously the mother and the little girl.
I’m not sure that I can parent like him, that my children will learn like I did and the memories will stand the test of time. I don’t know if I am selfless enough to stay up all night to stoke a fire while my offspring sleep, or trudge through a foot of snow to the woodpile out back. I am still new at this game and I don’t have all the rules down yet. But I am giving it my all, and I can light the fire at least. I remember to open the damper and tuck the crumpled paper carefully in with the logs. I bring the kindling inside from the rain to dry and use a homemade fan to help the sparks turn into flames. I’m not sure I can be the parent my dad was for me, but a fire is as good a place as any to start.
And tonight, it’s just another way to miss him. The crackle of the fire. That is what I forgot. I remembered the warmth and the smells. My olfactory memory taking me back to my days of girlhood, watching my dad in his lumberjack plaid pound the snow off of the logs before bringing them inside. It was the crackling sound that I forgot. Tonight the sounds take me back along the time/space continuum to the days that I was the little girl and my father the parent, crumpling newspapers and fanning the flames.
No matter how old I get I still cannot believe that it is ME stoking the fire and that the little girl drying her long golden hair by the fire is long-gone. I remember the Blizzard of 1978. One of my first real memories. I was seven, and the power was out as Lake Erie’s snow machine dumped over a foot of snow and killed the electricity for miles around. My dad hung a blanket on the family room door and spread our sleeping bags out in front of the fire. He stayed up all night to keep the fire going and keep us warm. I remember the pounding at the door, when the city’s police came to evacuate us to the shelter at the high school. My dad would not leave, and when the cop insisted, my dad brought him in to the family room where my two younger sisters were already sleeping. The cop finally understood and let us stay. My dad could keep us warm and fed no matter what the weather.
It is just so ingrained in my head, this picture of him in red flannel with raw hands to match. And the kindling and logs he split just outside the door and piled on the hearth. The way he took my sisters and I to the woods behind the elementary school to search for kindling, teaching us to snap the bigger branches in half across our knees. There was a horse-shaped tree we named Henrietta, and we would climb and ride as we gathered twigs. Of course you never realize it at the time, these seemingly little things that will become important and be the memories that you want to make for your own children. And it is impossible to know that in one glance and smell of a fire you can be simultaneously the mother and the little girl.
I’m not sure that I can parent like him, that my children will learn like I did and the memories will stand the test of time. I don’t know if I am selfless enough to stay up all night to stoke a fire while my offspring sleep, or trudge through a foot of snow to the woodpile out back. I am still new at this game and I don’t have all the rules down yet. But I am giving it my all, and I can light the fire at least. I remember to open the damper and tuck the crumpled paper carefully in with the logs. I bring the kindling inside from the rain to dry and use a homemade fan to help the sparks turn into flames. I’m not sure I can be the parent my dad was for me, but a fire is as good a place as any to start.
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