Soft

This is Carly. She and Molly decorate the paddock. I didn't always neglect my horses; before having children I groomed them fairly often, rode them occasionally, and even spent time lounging on the big rock in the field while they munched their hay and snorted at mosquitoes. Now, though, I feel proud that I remember to feed them three times a day. My life is bigger than it was nine years ago when Carly came to live with us. There are children, other animals, hours of indoor work. I still like to glance out the sliding glass door and see her at the fence, though. I like knowing that even if I forget the time, she'll remind me with a disapproving glare that she is due her dinner. And her hair - chestnut hair that stays shiny even in the face of benign neglect - is still soft against my cheek when I stand a moment next to her, out in the paddock.
~a



Reading Schoemperlen's "At a Loss for Words" this week I came across this Mary Oliver quote. "You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves." The main character emails this particular poem not once but twice to her beloved. She so desperately wants him to love her, and most of their relationship takes place online. Occasionally they meet, but only when they happen to be in the same city on business. I wonder how anyone, fictional characters included, could live their lives that way? How awful not to be able to touch and be touched by the one you love. Hand holding, lips brushing, arms encircling - they recharge me, keep me going. Yet the cure for stress, grief, or sheer exhaustion has always been the soft fur of a bunny, kitty or dog. Somehow they always seem to know when you need them most.
~b

Deep

Reading Michelle Cooper's 'A Brief History of Montmaray' this week I came across this very timely quote: "I always step warily, taking care not to look down through the gaps where the slats have rotted away (it's not the heights I mind as much as the depths)." The main character, Sophia, goes on to quote Kipling, 'The spent deep feigns her rest.' Sophia and her family are living on the island in a castle. With the cliffs and sea all around, it's easy to see why both would be very present in her thoughts. Water is always at the back of my mind, even in the dead of winter when all the currents have ceased to flow. Here in Vermont, the river that divides us from new Hampshire is quite scenic, providing panoramic views with a mountainous backdrop. I often wished we lived closer to the ocean where the depths are beyond imagining. But visiting the frozen river reminds me that way down deep there is still a trickle of movement. And as the snow begins to thaw the roar will return, and once again the water will move on its way to meet the sea.
~b

Luca is the child most likely to jump into the deep end of the pool without wondering whether or not he can swim. He's also the one who will share at least half of whatever he loves - candy, chocolate milk, stuffed animals - with whoever happens to be sitting next to him. His heart is huge, his will is strong, and his courage comes naturally. He's the boy I worry about both the most and the least. "Mommy, when will I die?" he asks every few days. Not concerned, just curious. "Not for many, many, many years," I tell him. Like it's an order. Like I have any real control over the date and time of his eventual demise. One thing I can do - teach him how to swim. Because someday he won't be held afloat with any life jacket.
~a

Man

I am surrounded by men. One husband, three sons, male dogs, and a boy guinea pig. At least we no longer have any roosters, just silly hens with no agenda beyond scratching the ground in search of food, hard to come by in our current winter conditions. I love my men, their whoops and hollers, their appetites, their sharp-edged toys, the way they laugh together with gusto only moments after vowing bloodthirsty revenge for some vaguely perceived insult. My boys are growing into men at a rapid rate; some mornings I don't quite recognize the boy I read bedtime stories to the night before. He's subtlety changed: a tiny bit taller, an expression of slight adult concern on an otherwise guileless face. Like looking at a blurred boy through an icy window, the man he will become hidden for the moment by fog and frozen water.
~a


It's hard for me to believe, but from the moment my son was born he was on his way to becoming a man. Over the years he has learned to be kind, the power of dry wit, and how to feel comfortable in his long limbs. My husband has also schooled him in The Way of Hats. For one, they are always in season: some for protection against the sun, some for warmth in the cold, biting winter. While the elder male in our house prefers a beret, the younger chooses something more comical, albeit with a sense of style. As he begins the rapid downhill descent towards Teenagerdom (just this past week he turned twelve and a half) my son has begun to figure out just what being a man entails. And though I know he's still got a ways to go, I can often catch a glimpse of the man he's becoming. Tonight we were asked to choose a poem for his English class project. One of the ones we read was aptly entitled, "My Father's Hats."
~b

Sickness

The first thing we do when anyone is sick in our house is to find all of our towels. They are an absorbent, motley assortment that has been building over the years. Ripped, torn or stained, it makes no difference if you are under the weather. Towels can comfort and cover, swab and swaddle. Smaller than a blanket and sturdier than a handkerchief. towels are oh so necessary when one of your loved ones is running a fever or constantly running to the bathroom. They help mop the mess or cool the brow, whatever is needed. Driving past our house when the towels are drying on the line, those who pass by see a multihued collection blowing in the wind. What they don't see - but perhaps they inherently sense - is that the worst is finally over.
~b




I've had a sore throat for three days. Ever since last April - when I had pneumonia and everyone else had the flu - any symptoms of sickness are accompanied by the anxiety that we are at the beginning of another month-long trial. So I gather the weapons at my disposal: vitamins, eye drops, prescriptions that work to keep us healthy. Much of the arsenal ends up on the kitchen windowsill, one of the few spots in the house from which things rarely go missing. Barely visible, another important tool lies in wait: the bottle opener. When the morning light hits my collection on a scratchy Sunday morning, it all feels a bit divine. I'm not one to pray (I'm undecided on the whole question of God) but I seem to have built a little shrine to modern medicine.
~a

Music

In fifth grade I was given the chance to take lessons and join our elementary school band. I envisioned myself playing the flute or clarinet. But when I arrived at the auditions, my teacher informed me that I had the perfect embouchure to play the trumpet. So that's what I chose. I played for years and years, all the way through school. After graduation I attended an all women's college. With no football team-- hence no marching band-- in sight, I gained permission to join the music program at the college a few miles down the road. Fortunately I had been given a beat up old Chevettte when I went to school and it came in handy when I needed to get to practice on time. For years that silver trumpet and the black case that enclosed it travelled with me wherever I went. When my son reached fifth grade I offered him the use of my trumpet in order to take lessons and become part of his elementary school band. After a few weeks of playing, his music teacher called home to say that she tried T on the trombone. And the sound he made on that instrument “was glorious.” For the past few years this very long black case has accompanied my son to school. Though it is awkward to carry he doesn't often complain, I think it has become second nature to carry it to the bus to his lessons twice a week. I harbor no delusions that he will grow up to become a world famous musician, all I have ever wanted was for T to have a chance to learn about music. How it can open your ears, your eyes, and doors to worlds you would haven't imagined were there. Who knows, maybe someday we'll even play a little brassy duet. A trumpet and trombone making what might be considered to some beautiful music.
~b



I haven't lived near the ocean for over ten years, but I keep the sound of it, one of the sounds of it, on our porch here in the mountains. Friends of my parents' gave us this wind chime when we were married, to remind me of home, they said. At first I thought they meant because it sounds like a cow bell - for a while we had cows, though none of them were ever domestic enough for a bell - but they were actually referring to the ocean, the clanging sound of the buoys. And it does sound like a buoy. A lone buoy a long way from the water, where no ships are in danger of jutting rocks. Music to my ocean-missing ears.
~a

Dark

January can be so dreary. The sun seems to be absent most days, as if it too had headed south with the birds. And what little light we do have leaves the sky much too early. As a result, most of us seem to be walking around with a permanent squint, just trying to get to here from there without bumping into anything. In this house we often pass the time by reading, playing games, or knitting. Though what should be fun can often be challenging - sometimes the yarn you choose hides the pattern you are trying to create and you must find a brighter yarn to substitute. But once you get going - rolling the dice, turning the pages, or clicking the needles - these activities become meditative. They keep us distracted from other thoughts: the imminent loss of beloved friends, or the fact that spring can't get here soon enough. At this time of year we can often feel isolated and suffocated, yet we're still looking for a way to break free of the fog that has encased us like a second skin. Reading can provide an escape, but there too is despair when you least expect it. Paging through a children's graphic novel the other day I came across a depiction of a horrific incident, based upon an actual historic event. I wanted to stop reading, forget about it all together, but something made me keep going. When it was all said and done, I realized its true importance. Without the darkness, how would we ever appreciate the light...
~b

When I think of the dark, these days, I think of power outages that happen just as I'm starting to make dinner.  But that's a hard photograph to take.  So this - my morning coffee.  Dark coffee.  At least two cups, sometimes three if I'm yawning in the afternoon.  Notice the eco-friendly, reusable, gold mesh filter; I try to save the world whenever I can.  Michael once brought medium coffee home from the Co-op.  I tried not to complain.  But then, I thought, he has to learn.  He noticed it himself.  "What is wrong with this coffee?!" he asked one morning, spluttering.  "Ah," I answered.  "It's medium."  Apparently, we are not a medium kind of family.  Sometimes we are cranky in the morning.  We need dark.
~a

Table

In the summer, we eat most meals at the picnic table on our porch. We've had our picnic table for ten years, since the first summer of our marriage; the table used to be too big for the two of us, plenty of room to spread out our books. Now five of us balance on its wobbly benches and try to avoid the splintery spots. Books no longer fit on the chaotic surface. Sometimes ten years feels as long as a whole decade; sometimes only a moment has passed, just long enough for someone to pass the corn.
~a






It's the center of the kitchen, the center of our household, really. It is often seen as empty space, workspace for almost anything imaginable. Bills, homework, crafts, Christmas wrapping, letter writing. We even keep one of the leaves in so that we can move everything to the side and still have a space for the three of us to eat. We tried building a jigsaw puzzle on it recently, but there just wasn't enough room. So we borrowed an old rickety card table and moved the puzzle onto it. It sits in the living room and now anyone can add a piece as they walk by. It may not be sound enough for a rousing game of Bridge, but it can still hold a jigsaw with the best of them. Our Stickley table we inherited from M's parents. It's been with us in each of our six homes. In New jersey our attic apartment was so small we couldn't even set it up. I can't even remember where we ate. But I do remember bathing our baby in the kitchen sink while Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane played on the stereo. Now here we are 12 years later. The table has been so supportive through all of these years. It's had its fair share of hardships - things spilled on it over and over and in definite need of refinishing. But as we sit around it in the evenings it suits out purposes just fine. We are together as a family: eating dinner, talking or more likely reading. We each have our seat at the table and I often wonder who sat here before me. How much has this table seen since its creation in 1955? And I wonder too how many more families will sit, pay bills, write letters and wrap Christmas presents on this bit of solid wood.
~b