Hello!

 Will, the Halloween Birthday Boy!

Have I mentioned I'm a room parent for Will's class this year? It's a nice gig, because everyone's insanely grateful to you for doing it (so they don't have to), and after the beginning of the year it's not all that much work.

My fellow room parent is a truly lovely woman, but I must say I think she picked the wrong year to RP, as not only is she working fulltime, she's also doing coursework in her field. So she's sending out reminder messages with the wrong date, and then sending out corrected reminder messages, only this time with the wrong time. Oops! So then I have to send out a correction to correct the correction.

The thing that gets me is that when I send out the correction to the correction, there's always one parent who emails me, not having actually read the correction to the correction, and tells me that the information I've sent out is incorrect. So then I have to gently correct him (and yes, it's a him, and yes I'm beginning to understand the source of his child's myriad social problems), which usually ends the cycle ... until the next time. And there's always a next time.

Last week, I volunteered at the class Halloween party. I do this every year, because Halloween is Will's birthday (Will is ten! Yikes!). We finished all the planned activities with twenty minutes left in the period, so we sat in a circle and told ghost stories. If you want to have fun, ask a group of kids to tell you ghost stories. They tell the exact same stories you heard and told as a kid! I'd love to find out where they got their stories from. I'd bet older siblings and cousins. I don't remember my parents ever telling me ghost stories, and I've never told any--at least any of the old standbys--to Will or Jack.

Here's a funny thing: Today I was a driver for a class field trip (I know, I know--I'm a saint), and I was telling one of the moms about what a great job her daughter did telling ghost stories at the party last week. "She knows a bunch!" I said, and the mom looked at me wide-eyed, like, really? She said she had no idea her daughter knew any ghost stories and furthermore, Mia was a real scaredy-cat. I thought that was so interesting. Was Mia trying to be brave by telling the stories? Was there something cathartic for her about telling them? Or does she have her mom totally fooled?

So anyway, do you remember the scary stories you and your friends told each other when you were kids? The one that I found deliciously terrifying was about the babysitter who gets a call from someone who's threatening bloody murder when suddenly the police break through on the line and say, "Get out now! The call is coming from inside the house!"

Not a ghost story per se, but boy did it send tingles up and down my spine!

We went to the Handmade Parade in Hillsborough on Saturday. The paraders wore paper mache masks and puppet heads they'd made in workshops in the months before the big event. There were third graders and long-haired hippie drummers and Girl Scouts and ten-year-old boys who seemed like they'd rather be elsewhere. There were a lot of folks on stilts. Here, let me find a picture for you:

They were cool to look at, though the thought of walking on stilts made my knees hurt.

Will loved the parade (he took all the pictures) and would love making a big paper mache lizard or bird puppet. But actually walk down the street in front of hundreds of people? I don't think so.

The older I get, the more willing I am to be goofy in front of other people. I would march in the parade, especially if I could play the drums. I probably wouldn't dress up funny, though. Are you a costume person? I'm not, not really. Can we divide the world up into people who like to wear costumes and people who don't?

So, no, I wouldn't dress up, but I would walk and sing and play drums and enjoy being around all the wonderful costumes and the people on stilts.

I had lunch today with my neighbor lady friends, Amy and Kathryn. They are both interested in an intentional community that's being built about 15 miles away from here. It's called Hart's Mill, and the point is to make a community that's self-sufficient and sustainable. They want to provide for as much of their energy needs as possible and grow as much of their food as they can.

Amy's interest in this community seemed to stem from a "let's all live in peace and harmony and work together for the common good" stance, while Kathryn espoused a "I want to grow my own food because the stuff you get in the grocery store will kill you" philosophy. 

Because the Man and I are known in our neighborhood for having a super-sized garden, Amy and Kathryn wondered if we had any interest in living in a community like Hart's Mill. The answer to that was a fast and furious no (okay, it was a mumbled "I don't think so," but you get my point). I told them it was because we're such introverts that sometimes community is hard for us. But really it's because we don't actually like other people.

Okay, that's not really true. There are all sorts of people the Man and I like. We like you very much, for instance, and our neighbor lady friends Amy and Kathryn. But we tend to be stubborn and ornery and cussed. We may not be the best people to invite if you're planning an intentional community. We might forget to come to the committee meetings and the communal suppers.

The nice thing about parades and harvest festivals and church and lunching with neighbors is that you get to be in community--and then you get to go home. The part about being able to go home is very important to me. I need a place where I can take off my paper mache mask and step off of my stilts and sit on the couch and be very, very quiet. No meetings, no communal dinners, no drum circles. Just home.

Arts & Crafts

It's hard not to get a little bit craftsy this time of year. There's something about a crisp fall day that makes me want to get out my art supplies and get to work. Last week I messed about with mixed media, for instance, transforming an Altoids tin into ...


Whatever this is.


And I transformed a box into ...

a box with pictures on it.

This past weekend, Will and I decided to decorate the dollhouse for Halloween:

We are in the process of making pumpkins out of Sculpy clay. I'll show you those when we finish.

As someone who makes a living as a creative person, it's very nice to get creative with no end in mind and no deadline at hand. But even nicer is to have a driver's license, a wallet, and several craft stores nearby. Do you remember what it was like to be a kid and have some big idea ... and then no one would take you to the store to get supplies? Or else, you had the supplies, but you couldn't figure out how to make your big idea work?

I was always trying to make houses out of cardboard boxes, but I lacked the architectural and engineering skills I needed to make that happen. I remember trying to use masking tape to tape on the second floor to my house, but the floor just kind of flopped. So frustrating!

One of the reasons I'd like to get my attic organized (I know: ha!) is that I have a dream of turning it into a museum of crazy art projects. Actually, I'd like to build a miniature village with its own railroad running around it. Wouldn't that be fun?

 I just read this article about a place in Hickory, NC, called Hart Square. In the 1967, a doctor named Robert Hart bought 200 acres of land for a family retreat. For reasons known only to him, he started collecting old and abandoned cabins, hauled them onto his land, and restored them, furnished them, and made his own village. It's open to the public once a year.

I want to do that! What I really want to do is buy the Henry River Mill Village (pictured below), which is where "The Hunger Games" was filmed. It's on sale for 1.4 million dollars. I don't happen to have $1.4 million on me, but if I did, that's how I'd spend it. The funny thing is, I'd rather dream of playing house in an old abandoned mill house than actually clean my own. Go figure.

Me & Will at "Take Apart Day" in Science class last spring. Please note that I'm wearing long johns and he's wearing shorts.

Two days ago it was sunny and 85 degrees; today it was rainy and 49. I have mixed feelings about this. While I'm very happy that fall is here, I would prefer it to come in a bit more gradually, with long stretches of sunny days in the mid-sixties.

I don't know why I have these sorts of expectations; the weather so rarely cooperates. And when it is perfect, you start to take it for granted, like, "Oh, of course this is how it is; isn't this how it's supposed to be? Isn't this what we're owed?"

Anyway. The boys had the day off school. This morning Will worked on his jungle diorama, which he's making just for fun, and Jack slept. This afternoon Will went bowling with his friend Gavin and Jack computed. I prepared for my Monday night Bible study. It's called Disciples II, and it's the same group from last year, when we did Disciples I. The problem being with the same group of people is that we all like each other a lot and spend too much time chatting and laughing.

For Disciples II, we're reading Genesis, Exodus, Luke and Acts over a 36-week period. Right now we're in the Abraham cycle. My favorite part of our reading this week was when Sarah overhears God telling Abraham she's going to have a son and laughs. When God asks her if He just heard her laugh, she's all, Oh, no, not me, I wasn't laughing. And God says, Au contraire, I think you were.

It cracked me up.

***

I spent a lot of time this weekend making art. I'll have to take some pictures and post them. Not this it's great art; I'm just happy to be making it. I made a shadowbox a la Joseph Cornell and a lot of trading card-sized collages. I love collages. I also love making stuff just to make it--not to sell it, not to give it away, not for any purpose whatsoever. My niece and I started trading artist cards this summer, and over the weekend I altered an Altoids tin and pasted pictures in it, then typed up several poems I like in very tiny print, cut them out, rolled them up into little scrolls and put them inside. My niece is writing poetry, and I want to encourage her.

One of the poems I included was actually an excerpt from an e.e. cummings poem I loved when I was young, "my father moved through dooms of love." Because you are poetry-loving people, I shall share the excerpt with you:

An excerpt from [my father moved through dooms of love]

By e.e. cummings

my father moved through dooms of love

through sames of am through haves of give,

singing each morning out of each night

my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where

turned at his glance to shining here;

that if (so timid air is firm)

under his eyes would stir and squirm

…

my father moved through theys of we,

singing each new leaf out of each tree

(and every child was sure that spring

danced when she heard my father sing)

…

I remember reading this as a kid and having no idea what e.e. cummings was talking about but still loving it like crazy.

***

The coffee experiment is going well. I've been drinking it almost every day, and my stomach is fine. I'm still sticking to my plan of starting the morning with tea. Coffee kind of pushes you out the door with a big jolt. Tea is much more civilized. As another one of my favorite poets, Theodore Roethke says, I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow ...

I'm starting to think about all the things I need to do for Christmas. Are you?

Coffee Break

 Latest quilt-in-progress

Hold onto your hats: I'm drinkin' coffee! Right now, as I write this. My first cup in months.

I might point out that what I'm really drinking is half and half with a little coffee thrown in, but it's a start.

I haven't decided what kind of coffee life I'll have from now on. It may be a ten in the morning kind of thing. It's not so bad waking up slowly, sipping peppermint tea. I like that I don't have to have a cup of coffee to start my day.

But I've missed coffee, and I want it back, if only in small doses every few days. With lots of half and half.

***

Jack didn't win the Student Government Treasurer election. He didn't seem too upset about it; in fact, sometimes I wonder if he runs for office to make a point, that it's all a popularity contest. And the truth is, the boy who won is one of the most popular kids in school. When Jack told me who he was running against I had to stop myself from saying, "And you expect to win?"

A side note: the boy who won has always struck me as a really nice kid, friendly, polite, has super-nice parents, etc. But for all I know, he's actually a rotten, horrible bully. It's just impossible to know these things from the outside. I'd be sad to learn that he's not the kid I think he is, but it's a possibility. I guess I could ask Jack, but Jack's not a great authority--he thinks anyone who doesn't do their homework is a juvenile delinquent.

***

Some of you have asked why I don't blow my own horn about my books on this blog. This may sound strange, but I want to have a place to write that's all my own. I love my family, but they have access to a lot of my writing, which is to say, a lot of my life. Imagine if your parents and in-laws and brothers and sisters could wander into your office and peer over your shoulder to see what you were doing any time they felt like it. Imagine them having access to your boss's evaluations of your job performance. Nervous-making, huh?

If I started writing about my books, a simple Google search would land all sorts of folks here. But I like it when it's just us, me, you, and the seventeen other people who read this blog. I like our neighborhood. I like being able to write about my life without getting phone calls from concerned relatives.

So, that's why. Simple as that.

***

The Man is over at Duke University Medical Center, for a gathering of bone marrow transplant patients and their caregivers. Our friend David, who I've written about here, received a bone marrow transplant a year ago in June, and after a really rough period, is doing great. While he was in the hospital, the Man went over every morning before work and took David on walks. He made David walk even when he didn't want to because he was feeling too tired or depressed to walk.

A few months ago, David told the Man that according to his doctors, without the walks, he probably would have died.

The big deal today: David is going to meet his anonymous bone marrow donor, who's been flown in from California for the occasion. Can you imagine? Oh, the tears are going to flow, I do believe, and I bet the Man sheds one or two himself.

***

It's a rainy Saturday morning. Jack is still sleeping. I'm composing a list of chores for him to do when he wakes up; otherwise, he'll waste the day away on the computer. I'm making a list for Will to do, too, mostly to encourage him to take up a project. If he's working on a project, I might not make him empty all the waste baskets. If he's just loafing about, I've got a long list of tasks. Attic, anyone?

I'm going to do some work in my study. I don't use my study much, for various reasons. During the day when I'm here all alone, I like to be downstairs, near the heart of the house. Our neighborhood is pretty safe, but every once in awhile there are a rash of break-ins. Tucked up in my study, I would never hear someone rattling the doorknob, or see a masked man coming up our driveway. I feel better being downstairs and having an idea of what's going on around me.

I should probably just convert my study into a guest room, but I like the idea of having a room in the house I can play with. Lately, I've been putting poems on the walls. There's a closet with lots of shelves, and I'm thinking of turning one of the shelves into an art exhibit. Don't quite know how that would play out, but it's fun to think about.

So I think I'll spend some time this afternoon up there, going through stuff, dreaming. Maybe reading poetry. I may turn my study into a poetry-reading room, stuffed with art and dreams. I'll take a picture if I do.

Have a great weekend!

My newly organized scrap baskets!

On Friday, I did a radio interview and a reading at a local bookstore for my new book. I'm not sure I've recovered yet. I'd planned to spend Saturday working on the attic--I really did! Honest!--but mostly I napped. Yesterday I worked on a quilt I'm making my sister-in-law for Christmas and made a pot roast. In other words, another quiet weekend. And an attic that's still a big, honkin' mess.

Various things to report ...

• Jack is running for Student Government treasurer. He would do a good job, but he probably won't win. I believe his campaign platform is "I'm obviously the superior person for the job, and you'd be an idiot not to vote for me." I'm happy that my child does not lack in the self confidence department, but I wish he'd figure out that he'd win more votes if he was actively nice to his peers. 

• I tried eating bacon recently. It was a bad idea. My gut is tolerating a wider variety of food these days, but pig is not one of them.

• The administrative assistant at Our Fine Middle School continues to be one of the scariest people on the planet. I needed something from her the other day and barely lived to tell the tale. I thought by having Jack bake her a pie at the end of the school year last year, I'd have it made in the shade. Mrs. T would love our whole family, and when ever I walked into the office, she'd smile and say, "How may I help you, Mrs. D?" Boy, was I wrong. Fortunately, I have learned from my Southern husband that in situations like this, the best defense is to be ridiculously polite. Because you might feel bad after being abused by a difficult secretary, but not as bad as you would if you were snotty about it.

• I can hear the UPS truck coming down the street. I haven't ordered anything, but I still hope it'll stop in front of my house. I always hope the UPS truck will stop in front of my house.

• I'm still feeling quiet. I'm writing my prayers down in a notebook, and it feels like writing a very long poem. I like writing prayers--I concentrate better, and am sometimes surprised by what it occurs to me to pray about. 

Sometimes I wonder if I'm feeling quiet right now because there's something inside me waiting to be born. I'll let you know.

New quilt: Front

My back to school edge seems to be wearing off. The first few weeks I'm always Miss Organized, Miss Got All the Forms Signed, Miss Get out of the Door at 7:35. Now I'm more like Miss Whatever.

That's not entirely true. I still make lunches the night before and I still comb my hair before pick-up if I'm going to walk into the building. But that's about it. I'm done in.

The boys seem to be fine. We've revised Jack's contract once already, amending it to require more family and downstairs time, plus exercise time on weekends. Plus a clause requiring him to be friendlier to his little brother. He's doing two afterschool enrichments, which is good. Most kids these days are overscheduled; mine are pretty much nonscheduled. But Jack could use a little scheduling here and there, a few more hours out of the house. He seems to like it.

This has been a quiet weekend. Yesterday I worked on a quilt and cleaned the house and then went out to a nice dinner with my friends Amy and Danielle. The Man worked on some projects in his study, and the boys took about eight hours to complete one chore apiece (Jack: laundry; Will: trash). I'm trying to get them to do more work around the house. They resist by saying, I'll do it in five minutes and then not doing it in five minutes. They think that eventually I'll get tired of nagging. Sometimes I do. Yesterday I held firm and the jobs finally got done.

It was a little frustrating, nonetheless.

Today: Church, naps, football on TV (not me; the Man and Will), youth group (Jack). All of the boys, Travis included, are on a walk/bike ride as I write. It's a beautiful day, and I should have gone, too, but what I really need to do is work in the garden, which has turned into a jungle. I will. In five minutes.

 New quilt: Back

This feels like a very quiet post, but I'm feeling very quiet right now. I'm working hard on a new book, which always makes me quiet and a little withdrawn. Not withdrawn in a bad way. Maybe I should say focused inward. That's what I am right now. Living all the way in my head.

Fall is on the way. Today was the first day you could tell. Driving home from church, I saw many of my neighbors in their gardens. We've all been waiting for a nice day in the upper 70s, light breeze, and here it is. I think I'll go enjoy it.