Beach Poem

We were lucky to go to the beach last week.  At the ocean with the kids, I always think of e.e.cummings' poem, "maggie and millie and mollie and may".   I've traced it here before.  My endless photos of kids with beach treasures cried out for a repeat.

will and clara and june and john 

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and will discovered some clams that opened

so slightly he could imagine their mystery, and

clara befriended a tangle of kelp

whose tangles magically mirrored her own;

and june was drawn in by a huge dead lobster

that spooked her enough to back away quick

john used every muscle to lift a stone

as small as a ball and as big as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find at the sea.

More Canning

Clara has a tradition of filling mason jars around this time of year.  Sometimes it's with crabapples.  Other times it's with worms.  Usually there's a ribbon.  Always there is dirt mixed with color.  

It's a simple art form that I love to see.  OK, it's really simple.  But still, it seems that amidst these really simple expressions, all parents see the simple beauty in their kids.  Even, or maybe especially, with a head full of tangles.

Real Life Canning

Recently, I squeezed in some late season canning.  I was determined.  So blindly determined that let me warn you: this is not a post for the faint-hearted.  Nor is it one that will inspire you to can tomatoes.  In fact, if you come to my house and I offer you tomato soup, there's a good chance you'll decline.

One Friday afternoon, all excited to get going, the girls and I went to a local farm and got a big box of tomatoes.  Things got busy, however, and the box sat on the kitchen counter.  And sat.  And sat.  Days (weeks?) later, Clara and I cleared our evening calendar and tackled the huge box we'd long managed to block from our sight.

We salvaged about half the tomatoes, ignoring the mouse poop at the bottom of the box.  Given these self-made trying conditions, we had to work fast to keep up our resolve.   In other words, we didn't really have time to clean up the kitchen before we began.  Clara dove in.  Hands, feet and all.

The result?  Eight beautiful jars of canned tomatoes.  All's well that ends well.  Though we haven't yet made any soup.

Cartwheels

There are some phases that, as a parent, you have to treasure.  By that, I mean soak in the entertainment, grab the chance for an internal laugh.

Currently, we are in the "Cartwheel Era."  Here is some evidence:

Chalk

Chalk figures on the driveway were a mainstay this summer.  There were flowers and mountains and planets and butterflies, but my favorite were the action figures.  Here, body-tracing got dynamic.  The kids would lie flat and still, but in a running position.  After concentrated, ticklish tracing, they would would fill them in with hair flying, legs kicking, arms pumping.  The whole project became true to life.  In fact, even the act of filling in figures involves flying hair, kicking legs, and pumping arms.

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Balancing Act

There seem to be artistic fascinations in our household that define certain times.  This past summer, one such interest was rock balancing.  It seems to be a fad all over these days.  The Boulder Creek is dotted with these amazing, gravity-defying sculptures.  The back-to-basics elements mixed with herculean challenge seem to be reflective of the times we are living, although maybe people thought that about Stonehenge, too.  Anyway, here are a few rocks that captured the time and concentration of my kids this summer.

Close

I marvel at my childrens' pure desire for skin, for body heat, for the safety of family flesh.

This summer, as we took a roadtrip, John sat in the back of the car calling for whichever parent was in the passenger seat to sit beside him.  Just to cuddle.  Just to be close.  My girls, now 6 and 8, pounce on my empty lap.  I sit and in an instant, I have children fighting for my legs.

At times, my internal voice is crying out for space.  Or maybe even the food right in front of me that I can't reach due to the child in my lap.  It makes me laugh sometimes when Jeff comes home from work and raises his hands as if for help, wading, waist high in a swarm of flesh-grabbing children.

But when I really look close, most (not all, but most) of my claustrophobia comes from pressures in my head, not the weight of children.  I am worried about schedules, about managing needs, about the skills I lack, the things I'm not, the things I wish, faults, fears, my children's faults and fears, somehow connected to mine.  My own mental clutter is what limits my senses.

But, in that moment of their reaching out, what matters is my children and their skin.  It is right before me, pure, new, unscathed, beautiful.  And they are crying out for mine.

My wish is to soften, and to energize my own shell.  To make it present for them, so when they clamber for proximity, they can feel me close.  They can feel my belief in them, my love.  More my hopes and less my fears.  And they can know that they are more important than any distraction, even though the distractions sometimes take precedence.  And maybe, when they grow up, they will remember, they will still know the power of touch, and the magic of family flesh.