Mutton

There are people we come across who provide a glimmer of who we will be in years to come. I've met women, or glanced at women, who I'm sure are some version of me, who embody an idea of myself that has yet to come to fruition. One winter night, a decade and a half ago, in a Welsh pub with a round wooden door, I found such a woman across the dining room. She moved calmly, with smooth grace; she used her hands to emphasize certain points in the conversation I was too far away to hear; she brushed her hair back from her forehead with natural motion. She drank red wine. I had yet to master red wine. I moved with awkward hesitancy that I hoped resembled gentle, attractive humility (it didn't). My hair remained in my face no matter how often I roughly shoved it back. I was unhappy, both because of circumstances and because who I acted like kept not matching up with who I thought I was. If you had asked me, though, I'd have claimed a full quota of joy. But, watching that woman over my brown serving of roast mutton and a glass of mis-paired pinot grigio, I felt sweetly aware that this year was only one moment of a great chunk of time. And though I never spoke to that woman in the Welsh pub, though she had no idea she was being so closely studied, I credit her as a type of beacon, a light house beam that reassured me, a bit, that things would change, I would change. I'd form a warm affection for red wine, and my hair would someday fall almost gracefully to my shoulders. I haven't eaten mutton since.
~a


When M and I got engaged, we took my family to a Spanish restaurant to make our announcement. It was to be our treat, and we told everyone to order whatever they wanted from the menu, though no one - no matter how desperately they thought they wanted it - could order the baby goat. I don't imagine anyone had been thinking of that choice for this festive dinner, but it made me feel better to state the obvious. When we go out as a family now, there is no ordering veal or lamb; the very thought of it makes me quiver. Perhaps I am somewhat hypocritical, but I am inordinately fond of sheep. This may be due to my new found love of knitting, but I find sheep fascinating. When I went to Germany to visit a friend over the Christmas holidays a few years ago, we toured the crèches on display all over the city, mostly so I could photograph the different representations of sheep. My obsession has become somewhat of a joke between us; just this past week we received a belated holiday package from Germany. Inside were sheep napkins, a sheep card, a bank in the form of a sheep, and chocolate sheep. These marvellous muttons are almost too cute to eat. I'm not taking any bets on how long they'll last, though.
~b

Black

Pope is our current black dog. We've never had a brown dog, or chestnut, or brindle. For the entirety of our marriage, barring a few months when we took a break from dogs, we've shared our home with a black dog. Often a white one, too. Our dogs balance the frenzy of daily life. They get excited when it's food time, or walk time, and the rest of the hours they lie like puddles on the rugs. A half hour on the couch is a victory, a clandestine sprint down the road is a vacation. They never ask hard questions like, "Why do we have wars?" or "What's for dinner?" They don't moan when their bellies ache, they require no signatures on any permission slips, and their homework consists of blinking once in a while so I know they're alive. Pope's muzzle is nearly all grey and one of his eyes is leaky. His breath is bad, his joints are stiff, and if there is a matchbox car left anywhere on the floor he will trip on it and frighten himself. He asks very politely for attention, so politely we usually don't notice. He is afraid of commotion but he adores people; he can usually be found in the midst of a party, his eyes brimming with ardent hope that nothing will fall on him. Here's to many more hours on the rug, Pope.
~a


I've never been one to favor the color black. Given a choice I will always choose blue ink, brown mascara, and charcoal or navy clothes. Black always seems so harsh, the final word on any subject. End of story, case closed. Maybe that's because I associate it with mourning and funerals. In terms of everyday style - especially when it comes to teens - it strikes me as being unimaginative. When I was little, I remember watching TV shows where the villain was often depicted with a black hat. Subconsciously back then I found myself gravitating towards lighter colors when I got dressed in the morning. Not white, exactly, but something light enough to make it known that I was one of the good guys. Now that I'm a "grown-up" (note the quotes) I find that black often provides a nice background, giving other, brighter colors the opportunity to contrast and really stand out. It provides a nice base layer, sometimes a starting point around which to build the rest of the outfit. Waking up in the morning I may discover that it's a Mary Jane day, and some days only sneakers will do. Maybe that's why I seem to own so many pairs of black shoes. of course they are all different, to suit my mood or need. I'm sure that's what any woman with a closetful of footwear would say. I wonder, though, is that rationalizing or a truth?
~b

House

I dream of houses. Most every night I find myself in a room; sometimes a real one from my past, sometimes it's unrecognizable, yet familiar at the same time. And there I am excitedly exploring, discovering more and more rooms that I didn't even know existed. If instead I am remembering my grandmother's house or my aunt's house in Cleveland where we would vacation each summer, I am almost always climbing the narrow stairs to the attic. We almost bought a house last summer that had these skinny stairs tucked away inside a closet leafing to a large open space. I imagined us putting down a floor over the unfinished beams in that uppermost hideaway... Yet we didn't buy that house and have yet to buy one, actually. Someday we will, one with room enough for animals, art supplies and countless LEGO pieces. Until then I pore over pages and pages of books - looking at doors, windows, hallways, walkways, and floorplans. These dreams grow and expand, modify and transform most every day. I often wonder if we shouldn't buy ourselves a little "piece o' land" somewhere and just start building. It seems as if we would have more than enough books for the foundation, walls and roof. We could use the pages for wallpaper: Auster in the entryway, Pratchett in the playroom, Herbert in the hallway, Asimov in the attic. To look up anytime and see yourself surrounded by the typewritten thoughts of these writers would be such a wonderful thing. Oh, words can be such comfort when dreams are not yet a reality.
~b


My house and I - we're the same. We're both messy most of the time. We both have scars, flaws, occasional leaks and lax security. Some of our corners aren't quite flush and our joints creak in the damp. We could really use some new upholstery. Our eleventh anniversary is coming up and at least one of us needs a paint job. But we're a good fit. When that northeasterly wind blows with extra gusto we settle firmly into our foundations and wait patiently for the weather to die down. We've yet to be hit by a falling tree; the few stray branches that land on our porch roof are easy to shrug off. Most of our windows are smudged, but we see just about everything we need to. Someday we will be cleaner, more organized, and more adept at receiving company that measures higher than four feet tall. Someday we will be deeply quiet for hours at a time, which will be both happy and sad. Until then, we will calmly tolerate the errant grape jelly on our walls.
~a

Mountains

Before we moved to Vermont, the three of us lived in an apartment complex right outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was so flat there that any little rise in the road felt like an Elevation Occasion - they just didn't happen all that often. After M and I came to Vermont for job interviews, the one things that stayed most vivid in my memory was the mountain behind the bookstore. More than anything I wanted to go to work every day and see that sight. Fortunately I got my wish. After visiting this area over the course of five years, we were finally able to move here and make our home in this valley. Everywhere you look there are mountains. I find them to be: beautiful, looming, glorious, protective, impressive, challenging and constant They provide a backdrop for almost everything we do here. This week marks our tenth anniversary of living in Vermont. I can't imagine our lives anywhere else.
~b


Our house contains many mountains. Laundry, mostly. Papers that I'm sure are Very Important but that I can't seem to find the time and energy to sort. Toys, books, dishes, dogs. I don't need to look outside to find a ridge line - I need only to glance in the game closet for a towering spectacle. Erosion and landslides are a part of daily life. Sometimes I obey the odd urge to organize and contain, but mostly I cook meals, write, play with my kiddos, and watch the occasional British murder mystery with M. If we get tired of the mountains inside our house, we can always go outside, where mountains are for climbing, digging tunnels through, sliding down, striding across, and tossing other bodies off of. There are plenty of mountains around us - we all get to be king of at least a couple.
~a

Eating

Our gardens are small and cared for only sporadically, but I like the idea of growing at least some of the food we eat. Like raspberries. I'm pretty sure these should've been pruned and fertilized last fall, but raspberries are a forgiving fruit and I take full advantage of their willingness to thrive under a regime of benign neglect. Just like my children... And I like seeing the vines bent from snow while I wash dishes at the kitchen sink. They remind me that summer will come, that soon I will stand in my front garden and pluck raspberries warm from the sun and eat them right there while boys and chickens dash around me, shrieking with the wildness of long summer days.
~a


Over the years I've noticed that we have started to form certain habits during mealtimes. Not only what we eat - paninis, turkey sliders, and breakfast for dinner at least once a week - but what dishes we eat certain foods on. Ice cream goes in the little blue bowls from Main Street Kitchen, chili in the terra cotta bowls from IKEA years ago, Chinese food in the hand-painted bowl from Tip Top Pottery that has the holes in it to hold the chopsticks. For most everything else we use the white dishes with the cobalt blue trim that came as part of a wedding present. After eating hundreds, maybe thousands (?!?) of meals off of these plates, I've come to realize that the washing up after dinner is just as much a part of the ritual as the eating is. We don't have a dishwasher, so each bowl, cup and spoon nestles in the sink alongside each other. Waiting to get cleaned, dried, put back in the cupboard until they are needed again. Which for some dishes, like my special blue salad bowl, won't be long at all.
~b