Birthday Girl
Yesterday, my baby girl turned six.
She decided not to have breakfast in bed. But we did follow the tradition of opening presents pretty much immediately upon waking.
Birthday cake, as decorated by a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Rules of hygiene not exactly rigidly adhered-to.
At her friend party. This is cake number two (cake number one was eaten the night before, at a small family party).
Six is the age at which we let the kids start having friend parties to celebrate their birthdays. Fooey sent out invitations way back in June, because she wanted to invite friends from her class at school, some of whom our family doesn’t know. Who would show up was kind of a mystery. In the end, six girls came. It was fun, and it felt easy: craft, outdoor play, a pretend treasure hunt for the supposedly missing cake, the opening of cards, and jumping through the sprinkler. All planned by the birthday girl herself.
For supper, not pictured here, the kids and I went out for all-you-can-eat sushi, also planned by Fooey. She didn’t care that her dad couldn’t come along (he had a soccer game over the supper hour): the meal had to happen on her birthday. And I’ll tell you, it was crazy fun. Yes, I spent a fair bit of time accompanying smaller children to the bathroom, but otherwise, I felt like I was out for dinner with four really entertaining personalities. We ordered surprises off the menu like “banana” (which turned out to be battered banana fried and served with chocolate sauce) and “golden bag” (which was not the hoped-for dessert item the orderer had guessed it to be; she ate it anyway). And I let them eat as many bowls of ice cream as they wanted.
There are times, it must be said, when being the mother of a pile of kids is just plain fun.
Happy birthday, my little Foo.
Grace notes
I am working again today, my third consecutive day, though perhaps with less enthusiasm and energy than on days one and two. Friday, I ploughed with confidence through the first two stories, slow and steady, and with the phrase “take heart,” in my mind.
Yesterday, I tackled my nemesis and felt satisfied. I wrote a new scene for another story and felt calm. And then I spent hours waiting for a couple of words to arrive: dialogue that must say enough but not too much, that will illuminate, leave space for mystery, and not confuse the reader. Oh, and complete a story with a few final rhythmic beats, too. Harder than you might think.
And this is the easy stage. Except maybe it’s not. Maybe there isn’t an easy stage. Yes, the stories are structurally sound. They are thoroughly imagined. That intensive and demanding work is long since done. But we’re down to the details, the nitty-gritty, the word here that could be stronger, the paragraph there that is too vague, the stray fluff that if left in might distract a reader, might sap energy from the larger story.
It’s work that makes me feel like pulling my hair out, like running for hours (in the opposite direction). I know these stories all too well. Can I walk through such familiar terrain and observe with fresh eyes? I cannot. It is impossible. The best I can do is force myself to pay attention, slow down, creep along, praying for a depth of concentration that will allow me to finish what I’ve started. To see it through to the end.
It should be easy. A word here, a word there. Grace notes.
That’s a musical term, but I’m hearing it differently all of a sudden. Notes that grace the whole; but also, notes that arrive by grace.
That sums up the work I need to do today, and the work I’ve been doing. Waiting for grace. Sitting with my stories, picking slowly through them, hoping for grace. I can’t rip the words out of thin air. I have to invite them over. And be here when they arrive. They’re whimsical, fickle, unreliable guests. There’s no predicting how they’ll surprise me.
Which is why I’m still hanging around waiting, I suppose. It’s tedious. But somehow I trust I won’t be bored, in the end. Neither will you, dear reader, I hope.
Loss
A few entries ago, I wrote briefly about reading Mary Oliver’s Winter Hours. I would love to type out an entire poem here, but without having permission to reproduce it in full, will give you a link instead (and do read it in full), and quote the final four lines of what is probably her most well-known poem: The Summer Day.
She is writing about prayer. She says she does not know what a prayer is, but she does know how to pay attention: “how to be idle and blessed.” She has spent the day in what might appear to be idleness, strolling through fields, kneeling in the grass, examining the grasshopper. She asks:
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everyone die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Yesterday started with unexpected news from my mother’s family: the sudden death of one of my cousins’s spouses, mother of two, only 43. They live in another country, and I can’t say we’ve seen them more than every other year or so. But the day was nevertheless altered by the knowledge of this family, not far removed from my own, suffering an unimaginable shock and loss. What comfort can there be for her boys? Her youngest son is the age of my eldest. There was no preparation, no advance knowledge, just in an instant, one precious life gone. She is no longer in this world with her family.
What waits around the corner? What secret end is hidden inside the body, waiting to reveal itself in time? Nobody knows.
And so, Mary Oliver’s wise and bright words came again to me. No wonder they are quoted so widely. No wonder. Because, yes, everyone dies at last and too soon. And we are all alive, right now. If you are reading this, you are alive. Life is wild. It can’t be tamed, or made safe. It’s all any of us has really got. What are we to do with it? What a question.
Here’s what I did yesterday: hung laundry on the line, made yogurt, smelled my children’s hair, jumped on a trampoline, ran through the woods, cheered from the sidelines of a soccer game, drifted, fought impatience, struggled with my children arguing with each other, and wondered … what more? Or even, what less? What do I plan to do with this one precious life?
Piggy-bank project
This was an all-family project. At the start of the summer, we talked about getting a trampoline for the back yard. The kids seem to keep growing. And the old swing set looks kind of destructible with several ten-year-old boys playing on it. But trampolines are expensive. So, we started saving for it. In the end, the kids emptied their piggy banks (literally), we wrapped coins (a project still underway), used the money from the long-ago “reward jar,” found a whack of Canadian Tire money, and, after a lot of online research, chose a trampoline. It’s supposed to be the safest one around. Fingers and toes are crossed.
The trampoline came home from the store in three boxes. Putting it together was a two woman/man job requiring a lot of physical strength, and some smarts, too. Albus and AppleApple were both very helpful with the smarts.
We were hosting a double sleepover yesterday evening, so we had some extra help. After many hours of labour, the whole thing was finally built before it got dark.
The boys thought it would be funny to show this.
Followed by this. (I hope the trampoline doesn’t laugh last.)
We do have rules. Our rules are: no shoes, zipper closed, and only two kids at a time (kids of similar weight).
Oh, and it’s not just for kids.
Here we go to family camp
The camera never got past the campsite (which was located very near the basketball net).
That means there are no photos of the pond where we swam, of the campfire where we sang, of the field where exciting boy versus girl soccer games broke out every evening (girls won both times, if I do say so myself, as a member of the team).
No photos of the stars, or of the friendly and entertaining staff.
No photos of the beach where I got to run early in the morning with my friend Nina.
Hey. We’ve got the memories. Here’s hoping we’ll go back next year to make more.