Eighth Month With You

Alamae James, with your four half teeth, your selective smiles, your determined crawl. Today you climbed two stairs when my back was turned.  

You clap on command. You prefer to perch on my left hip, prefer your father even more still. You pull yourself up. You fall down. You bruise your sweet cheeks, and immediately seek new adventures. You make my world better and brighter and far more exhausting. 

 You are loved beyond compare.

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Strong. Brave. Cold.

Nietzsche told us, "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger." As a tried and true coward, it is a sentiment that I was never actually very fond of. Clearly some things could just plain kill us, or leave us broken and damaged beyond repair.

There are so many ways to stay safe, but a safe life is not necessarily a happy one. Without hardship, not only do we grow weak, but we also grow unappreciative. We cease to notice the blessings around us.

These thoughts may have led me to say yes to a naked swim in galvanized bucket on a warm, November afternoon. Yes again to Gus's request to jump off my parents's pier in preparation for the New Year's polar bear plunge. Because maybe they will catch colds, maybe the neighbors will look at me with barely concealed judgement, but in the end, maybe we were all just a little stronger.

Bravery can be manifested in unexpected ways. Challenge is good for character. A shock of cold offers its own rewards.

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This Weekend We

On Sunday morning as I was driving home from dropping off friends who had spent the night, I was listening to a pretentious radio show that informed me that a good host thinks about how she wants her event to be remembered and should try to create a unique experience. I realized that by that definition I am far from a good host. Almost every party I have hits the exact same notes. I am a one trick pony.

Every party involves food that has been prepared ahead of time or that can be thrown on the grill.  It is served without fuss.  People crowd around the insufferably messy kitchen. I make some sort of clear liquor cocktail, and there is always a cooler of mixed beer on the porch. The mix always include Natty Boh. We make a bonfire. People line up for the rope swing. Gaggles of children run around the house for hours, making too much noise to suit my neighbor. Two thirds of the party spends the night, and the next morning we make dozens of eggs and pot after pot of coffee while kids rekindle the fire and grown-ups wipe the sleep from their tired eyes.

This weekend, this party, was just as it always is, just as it will be for the foreseeable future. Except that this weekend my dad was dressed as Neal Cassidy, the kids bobbed for apples, and Arlo and Felix unknowingly picked out the same costume. This time the guacamole was a little grosser and candy more plentiful. But basically, it was the same old trick. 

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My Heart is in the Kitchen

My heart is in the kitchen, stirring oatmeal, scrambling an egg, cutting up his avocado. It's in there with the scratched linoleum begging to be swept, by the recipe box I inherited from my grandmother. It's in and around the jars of fermented salsa, the bone broths that make my house smell of an old world.

My heart chops up garlic and it scrubs out pots. It pulls out knifes that are never sharp enough to prepare meals that are always simpler than the recipes, ingredients forgotten at the store or in the cabinets.

My heart unloads the dishwasher when it can't find a child to do the deed. It wishes that the stove was gas and that vinegar and baking soda didn't require quite so much elbow grease. It wakes up in the morning to brew Maxwell House and in the evening it's there to plunk ice cubes into a glass for a tall, weak gin and tonic.

It makes it's way into the bellies of the people I love through roasted chickens and buttery mounds of sweet potatoes.

My heart waits there among the amused cast iron and the oft- misplaced measuring spoons. Beating and waiting.

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Good Is Enough

We're "good enough" people. People who aren't inclined towards perfection. We have small ambitions. We're easily pleased with our efforts. 

Yesterday in the few moments after Tom came back from church and before I had to head to work, we worked outside, putting sections of the yard to bed for winter, letting Sena stoke a fire with damp leaves. Our goal was not lofty. We have no expectation that our yard will ever look like the visions I find myself pinning late at night when the house is still and quiet. But a few hours and a half dozen hands can make it look a little tidier, and that's all we ever really need. For things to be okay.

The mentality leaks into all facets of our lives. Our hobbies and parenting. The way we eat. The dinners I cook. The cleanliness of our home. Our finances. We aim for good enough, and it serves us well. Tom plays his homemade banjo knowing there are improvements he could make, seeing the flaws, but nevertheless, happily, proudly, often just a little too loudly. I post pictures that speak to my heart without concerning myself for long about their technical shortcomings. We are imprecise people.

This weekend I was talking to a friend about homeschooling. The past few weeks I have taken up a new mantra with old origins: "But first do no harm." Instead of worrying about all the things I'm not doing or about the myriad things I am doing badly, I'm concerned mostly that my children's love of learning is not dampened, that their happiness fills the crevices of their days. 

There will always be people out there doing things better than I do. People who stick with their plans, who abide by schedules and who make checklists that actually get completed. I am not one of them, and Tom isn't either. For better or worse, we seem to be raising children who follow in our non-competitive, unexacting footsteps.  I see it in the way Sena does math, the way Gus plays soccer.  It's a trait that will not always serve them well, but sometimes it will be just what they need. It will let them be content with what they have. To accept accept themselves for who they are. It will allow them the freedom to try and fail, or sometimes to try and quit. And they will be prepared to move on and try again. 

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