Snippets
Finding it hard to find time to write this week. The schedule feels relentless. There are so many little odds and ends I want to note and write down in order to remember, but I’m doing it all in my head, never getting my fingers to the keyboard (or a pen to the page of a notebook, for that matter). Baby sleeping poorly, STILL! Last night, we got him down, Kevin left to go back to work late, and I went off to bed–and by 10:30, CJ was awake and screaming and the magic boob had apparently lost all of its magical powers. No go on the nursing; he really wanted nothing, just couldn’t settle and sleep. I let him cry for twelve long minutes in his playpen, tried nursing again, nope. This went on. I almost called Kevin to beg him to come home and walk the kid around, but eventually CJ fell back to sleep in our bed, with me patting his back. And there he stayed all night, nursing on multiple occasions. The magic reappeared at around 1AM.
Our last CSA box will be picked up tonight. I’m guessing: beets, chard, beets, chard, beets, chard, a carrot or three, potatoes. In fact, in preparation for this arrival, I am boiling up all the beets to be found still huddling in our fridge. It’s my Tuesday clear-the-bottom-drawer boil-up. Except there’s still last week’s chard. Oh, and kale. Forgot to add kale into the mix. There’s bound to be some of that too. I can’t possibly eat it all myself, and no one else will, so it sits sadly in the fridge waiting patiently, growing weak and weary and all dried out and shrivelled.
Was supposed to write on Monday morning, but woke up unprepared and decided to run errands instead and go about a regular day. It was fine, but I do miss it. Still, the writing day really only works when I can string more than two or three hours together at a time. It’s just exquisite torture otherwise. Just enough time to get into something, never enough time to finish it. In fact, I’d say it takes about two hours to get chugging, like the brain is finally up to speed and connections are being made lightening fast, ideas stringing together, words flowing and dancing, and it’s just cruel to cut it off at that point.
Must cut this off at this point, however, because it’s F’s music class at the Beckett and we are leaving in about ten minutes, and I have to wake the babe and change his diaper and toss everyone into warm clothing. Hopefully CJ will be cheerier today, having had (a portion of) his nap before the class. He’s less and less easy to entertain for an hour in a bare hallway, waiting. I think the teacher likes us to stay in case there’s an emergency bathroom break, but maybe I could sneak off for part of today’s lesson and grab a coffee and a treat from City Cafe bakery just up the street. That would just about make my day.
Sunshine this morning as we walked to school, very very cold, but brilliant and beautiful colours that lifted my spirits. Now we’re back to grey. My least favourite colour. My least favourite mood.
Vow of Silence
Wow. Unexpectedly, I have a full fifteen minutes to myself this afternoon. Actually, it was half an hour, but I just wasted half of it surfing the net looking for info on recalled toys and symptoms of lead poisoning, because baby CJ was discovered earlier this afternoon with a blue tongue caused by sucking on a little rubbery fireman figure, provenance unknown, likely a dollar store, definitely made in China, and claims to have once been a Tonka product. The blue dye was what his saliva dissolved off the fireguy’s pants. That doesn’t seem normal. I’ve been sitting here seriously considering chucking all made-in-China toys that currently populate our house, along with all toys with small magnets. CJ is so very very mobile all of a sudden, and I cannot keep my eyes glued to him every minute of every day.
But let’s move on to cheerier topics, shall we. Tomorrow I’ll get down on hands and knees and crawl the house in search of disposable toys, but hey, this aft, I’ve got a few free minutes and I wanted to write about being mute for a couple of days. It was such a frustrating and simultaneously enlightening experience. On Wednesday I literally couldn’t speak. I could whisper, but my actual voice emanated as a high-pitched whistle that a) made me sound like a squeak toy and b) was highly ineffective for virtually any communication. But still having these children to look after, life went on, despite an almost silent Mommy. In fact, life went on really darn peacefully. For example, on Wednesday, the kids and I walked home from school in near silence, just a few comments from them to each other since I could not moderate discussion. We walked through the door and things did not fall apart. On the contrary, big bro A was on best behavior. Supper got made in record time. Peaceable children read stories to each other. Any intervention I made was whispered and therefore calm-sounding, patient. Children started whispering to each other. I swear, it was the best after-school-hour we’ve had all year.
I’m big on silver linings, and must confess it was really really frustrating not to be able to talk, like having a vow of silence forced upon one, but what I wanted to take away from the (admittedly brief) experience was how powerful a quiet voice can be. Much more powerful than a loud one. And additionally, how children can be moved to pitch in and help when really needed, how adversity raises the behavior bar for everyone. Not that I want to be sick again!
Oh dear. Naptime is abruptly over. The kid has napped a total of forty minutes all day! And it’s almost 5pm!
Superhero Cinderella
Today I feel like a superhero, except without the super powers. No, I’m the superhero with the double life, changing in the phone booth, racing from one reality to another in the blink of an eye. Today, we slept in, and the day started with a multi-coordinated dash to get dressed and fed and breast milk expressed and the children out the door in under an hour, in the care of their super-dad. Then my writing day started, except not really, because I still needed a shower. This superhero starts slow. Eventually, the writing portion of my writing day began, and I sat on the blue exercise ball and worked on poems. It was definitely a poetry day. I even wrote a new poem! I worked around the muffins for dictators theme of an earlier blog entry. Sort of a recipe for poetry poem. Somewhere in there, I fed the baby, packed my handsome leather bag (for professional use only), dug my nice boots out of the basement, and brushed my hair. Kissed all goodbye, jumped in the car, and drove off to the symposium on fiction for Chinese and Canadian writers. Apparently, I count as a Canadian writer, which is nice to know. In fact, this was my disguise.
Parked, followed signs, entered typical room in typical university facility, pleasant but furnished on budget and by committee. Hoarsely informed organizer of my temporary disability–though thankfully my voice worked enough that I could make myself understood, which was not the case yesterday. Spent the first fifteen minutes chatting with Alistair MacLeod, whom I’d met once before, a long time ago. He seemed to accept my disguise. I was the representative young local writer. One woman thought I was a university student. Which is a pretty nice compliment at this point in my life.
The Chinese writers, flown in from China for this event (though perhaps for more?), spoke very little English, so we were seated in groups with a translator to facilitate conversation. I found the whole process very interesting. I was seated with Dennis Bock, who coincidentally was our neighbour when we lived in Guelph, and his wife and I had babies at the same time, so that felt most unintimidating. I was only kinda in disguise at that point. At our table was Fe Gei, a writer who was working on a massive trilogy about modern Chinese history; he also writes short stories, one of which I was able to read in translation before meeting him. Few of the writers had the opportunity to read each other’s work, since most hadn’t been translated. At our table, we talked, with some difficulty, about concepts of economic class in Canada and in China, and about ideology. It felt like we were trying to represent very different worlds to each other, through the voice of the translator, who had moved to Canada sixteen years ago, and had her own opinions on subjects.
Toward the end of the conversation (well after the meal of take-out Chinese food had been consumed), I was able to ask Fe Gei about his story writing, and about his interest in Western writers, and about Raymond Carver, whose stories he greatly admired. He asked what ideas I was trying to convey through my writing, a question that very nearly stumped me, so I simply said that I start with an emotion, that I write about relationships. That I try to get at the essence of what seem like ordinary moments. He seemed quite chuffed about this. I was taken back to China, which I visited as a high school student in 1992, and to those formal, funny gestures of goodwill, of elaborate and heartfelt hospitality that are much greater than we Canadians are accustomed to offering or receiving. How can I get at this? He said it had been an honour to meet me, and that he would tell young Chinese writers he mentors about me and the kind of writing I was doing. I said something in a similar spirit. But I am not sure whether these were empty compliments of the sort we are used to giving and receiving; or whether he meant it with all his heart, which is what it looked and sounded like. I guess I will never know. Lost in translation.
Then I said a quiet goodbye, and slipped away, because my time was up. Come to think of it, it was less superhero, and more Cinderella. The clock struck midnight and I dashed to the car, just Mommy again, and drove home to my baby, who was desperate for a nurse, and my three-year-old, who, in the few moments while I was changing CJ’s diaper managed to colour both of her hands with a green marker. She approached me with hands hidden under sweater. “Mommy, I not colour my hands.” Huh? “No, Mommy, I not colour my hands.” Oh dear. What a sweet confession. So we added scrubbing hands to our to-do tasks before walking up the hill to school to pick up the kids. I took off my boots and put on my sneakers, and that was all it took.
No Hurry, No Rush
I’m so appreciative of our new school schedule this year: last year, we had to race off to get AB to senior kindergarten by 1pm every single day, along with taking A first thing in the morning. This year, both kids are in full days, and I love those morning and afternoon walks and chats with the children. And I love, love, love that unbroken stretch between drop-off and pick-up. It means baby CJ gets more time napping in his own crib, and I can plan special activities for F, and it means we can have days just like this one: with no plans at all. And no hurry, no rush.
It means baby CJ can nap for two straight hours, like he did this morning, while F and I bake muffins together (Healthy ones. If these turn out, I’ll post the recipe). It means the two of them can play together in the living-room, as they’re doing right now, without me worrying that we need to stuff lunch into everybody and get dressed up in winter clothes for an unwanted outing. The fate of the younger child is to be dragged along on various outings that benefit other people. Yesterday, CJ was in his car seat, or waiting outside F’s music class, or in the stroller, for two and a half straight hours. He was going mental by the end, and I didn’t blame him. I sent Kevin for the CSA box because I couldn’t bear making CJ endure yet one more errand when all he wanted was the freedom to crawl around on the floor and play. The older kids spent an hour after school at a local history club organized by neighbours who are homeschooling. Having dashed from F’s music class, then home to walk to school, then walked the big kids to the library, then home again–a full hour of walking–I indulged my impulse to do NOTHING, and F and CJ and I played together in the living-room. I read her some stories. She coloured. CJ and I played the piano. It was as lovely as it sounds.
It felt like winter this morning, without snow, but the sun is gorgeous, and I hung out the laundry. I still have no voice. Laryngitis (sp?) is my Achilles heel (to mix metaphors). I miss speech! It feels very isolating. I’ve dug out the humidifier to use tonight, and continue to swill hot drinks, including my ginger-garlic brew. It would probably be best if I could manage not to talk for a full day, but that’s impossible. I have to squeak at these poor children on occasion. And tomorrow I’ve been invited to participate in a dialogue between Canadian and Chinese writers at the University of Waterloo. Apparently the Chinese writers don’t speak any English so we will be speaking through translators. At least it’s not a reading. I am a last-minute fill-in for someone presumably more qualified to attend, because the other Canadian writers are: Wayson Choy, Dennis Bock, and Alistair MacLeod. I was a little bit worried about being such a novice among these other writers, but my greater concern now is that I may not be able to say a word.
CJ is on the move! I just found him standing by the bookshelf. Completely standing! And F would like instructions on how to snap her fingers. Her face is covered with chocolate. The muffins weren’t completely healthy. I ad-libbed.
Baby, It’s Cold Out
Voice getting worse. I can now barely squeak, which is frankly quite a disadvantage with these children to round up and boss around. Heh. It is very frustrating to have to whisper things like, “Please don’t play in the leaves on the road!”