{This captioned moment}
I like Soule Mama’s {this moment} photo-only Friday post, marking out a special moment from the previous week. I like it, but I’m too damn chatty. So here is my narrated version of {this moment}: photo plus caption.
Soccer girl lies amongst the shoes in the front hall, preparing for her last tournament of the season, to be played on what amounts to a rolling farmer’s field, on a cold, rainy, windy Saturday.
(Confession: special moment chosen largely because I took so few photos this week; not to diminish its specialness.)
Tryouts for next season start in, oh, a week.
Take your chances when they come
I’ve put away the canning kettle for the season. And while this wasn’t a banner canning year for me, I was reminded, as every year, that it’s not that hard to do. It’s time-consuming, finicky, hot, and has to be done when the fruit is ripe, that’s all. Listen to the radio. Accept help. Try not to whimper because you’ve got one more canner full of jars to boil and it’s nearly midnight on a weeknight.
For some reason, it’s worth it to me. Maybe it’s the colourful jars in the cupboards. Maybe it’s looking forward to a winter of sauces and chilis and soups in the crockpot.
Speaking of seasonal, I had a little thought in church on Sunday (I take the family occasionally, to touch base with the Mennonite in us — Kevin excepted, though he still has to go). The thought was this: Sometimes I’m open to soaking in experiences, observing, learning, participating, doing. And sometimes I just want to reflect. And these two states of being don’t really overlap, much, for me. Or maybe they do, in ways I just can’t see. Maybe what I’m trying to talk about is that sometimes I feel like I’m skimming along on the surface of things, and other times I’m very still and quiet, and I can sense the sacredness in everything. When I’m skimming along, I don’t even really like the word sacred. It sounds too serious, too self-conscious, too heavy, too inward-looking. I appreciate and respect it, but I don’t like it.
I don’t get to decide what kind of mood or state I’m in. I’m just there. It’s like being in the mood to play the piano, or write a poem. I have to accept where I’m at.
It’s hard to accept where I’m at when it’s somewhere I don’t want to be.
I’m skimming along right now. I’m frustrated by my inability to be still and quiet.
But here’s another tiny thought: sometimes — really, most of the time — it doesn’t matter what I’m in the mood for. I have to take my chances when they come. I have to can the tomatoes while they’re ripe. I have to run during soccer practice, and read stories at bedtime, and cook supper when everyone’s hungry for supper. And right now I have to get revved up for readings and for meeting new people and a bit of travelling — and even a bit of travelling is a lot, for me.
One of the places I’m travelling to is Winnipeg. I’ll be there a week from this coming Monday (!!), reading at the Thin Air Writers Festival. I found this lovely blog post on their site, written by Rosemary Nixon who appeared at the festival last fall. I’ll admit to some gnawing apprehension about leaving the kids and dogs and Kevin, with all the scheduling excitement to manage on their own, but Rosemary’s post reminded me of the potential that is waiting in this new experience — exciting.
A lot of life is about getting it done. And that’s fine, that’s probably even good, and necessary, and right. I’m privileged enough without getting to do what I’m in the mood for all the time. So the tricky part is appreciating what’s going on, floating on random flotsam and jetsom amidst the current that is carrying me along, and, maybe, glimpsing something mysterious in the trees that is there to be seen.
Maybe even while skimming along, I’m catching and keeping the things that will sustain me when I’m ready to be still and quiet again.
Young, Hot, and Local
totally unrelated photo
Amusingly, I read this article today on CBC Books because the title interested me: “Book blogs we appreciate: the 2012 edition.” Scrolling down, yes, I know that one, and that one, and that one too — hey, what the?? That can’t be right. That’s me!
Weird, huh.
To sustain the self-promotional links theme, let me add that I’ll be reading at the Eden Mills Writers Festival on Sunday, from 12:30-1:30, along with Tanis Rideout and Dani Couture. We’re being billed as “Young, Hot, and Local.” (!!) I can’t comment. Just can’t comment. Resist the urge to comment, Carrie.
Anyway, Eden Mills is family friendly, and I plan to bring mine and spend the afternoon. It’s a beautiful setting too.
And that’s all she wrote. For this afternoon. Off to the cross-town piano lesson scramble.
Look how we’ve grown
Every September we measure the kids on a wall in the basement. We started the annual ritual not long after moving into this house, which was nine years ago this summer. It’s entertaining to compare, say, AppleApple, who has always been my biggest child, from birth onwards, to Fooey, who has always been my smallest. We discovered this year that Fooey measures almost a year and a half behind AppleApple in height! AppleApple, meantime, would be taller than Albus, if they were exactly the same age. And so far, Albus and CJ measure identically at the same ages.
Trivia. The stuff of life.
This year we measured Kevin and me too. It was the kids’ idea. I’d rather not repeat it every year, because really, all we can hope for is that we haven’t shrunk: that’s our only direction at this stage. Amusingly (for me), I proved taller than expected, and Kevin proved shorter. We’re only separated by about 2.5 inches. So we gave everyone a low five: guess what kids, you’ve been gifted with short genes.
Reflecting on measuring changes, here’s another one. I’m realizing that there may not be quite as much blog-time this fall as I’ve been accustomed to. Please accept in advance my apologies for the absences that may occur.
So much I want to tell you about: work, play, exercise, new activites, a family meeting, canning, running, writing, suppers. So much I want to record and preserve.
But the truth is that I’m not keeping up. I’m not used to not keeping up. Professionally, I’m swamped through October, and on the domestic front, well, it’s back-to-school time, and you all know what that means. So I’m hoping to tread water. That’s all.
Actually, come to think of it, I’m hoping not to shrink …
Today, another first day
This morning I biked uphill with CJ “pedalling” on the trail-a-bike behind me. Why is our entire route to school uphill? Then again, the entire route home is the opposite. CJ chattered the whole way. He kept calling out questions, and I kept puffing out abbreviated replies, along the lines of, “Can’t talk! Trying to breathe! Keep pedalling!”
I saw some tears in the kindergarten drop-off zone, but they weren’t his, and they weren’t mine. On the whole, he was excited, although one of the last things he told me before we parked at the school was, “I’m feeling nervous, Mommy!”
That’s okay, kiddo. It’s okay to feel nervous. It’s a big change.
We grabbed some photos on my phone, the bell rang, he got in line, he went inside. A quick kiss was squeezed in there.
Very different from my very first kindergarten drop-off seven years ago.
Seven years ago, my baby, my firstborn, was that kid in the kindergarten line-up who was having hysterics and clinging to his mother’s leg. That mother had a two-year-old by the hand, and a newborn strapped across her chest in a sling. It was a really hot day. The pitying, sympathetic glances were numerous. I could almost hear parents thinking, Thank God that’s not me, poor woman.
I left the school in tears, my kindergartner wailing loudly and kicking the carpet in his new kindergarten classroom, his classmates observing him with vague curiosity.
“Don’t worry, we’ll call you if we need you,” the secretary told me, as she tried to get me to go home. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to break into the kindergarten room and hug my screaming boy. But I went home.
All was well when I came to pick him up several hours later, though I could hardly believe it. And he’s remarkably well-adjusted and sociable, so I don’t think the experience scarred him for life (though I wasn’t convinced at the time).This is such a different experience. I felt so much more sadness over that first leaving, more grief about the passage of time. Maybe it’s having four children, and having gone through this ritual repeatedly over the years. Maybe it’s just about being ready.
But he didn’t look back as he walked into the school, and I didn’t wish that he would.