New Bike Summer

Project

All morning, the kids and I walked around town putting up posters for Ubuntu Canteen.

A day perfect in so many ways.

A Taste of the Future

Today at 7:30, I was nearly the first one at the Farmers' Market and it looked completely different from when I typically show up with the kids a good three hours later after breakfast and dilly-dallying around. I must try to do this more often, although the only reason I was there instead of under covers was because I had to drop Li'L A off so he could take the school bus to a cross country meet. The hours vary, but he's usually gone most of Saturday.

We putter around, Baby A and I, doing Saturday toddler stuff, Big A not back from work yet, and it was a reminder that soon, this will be us: Big A at work as usual and Li'l A away at college, making a life. If those are the worst separations fate has in store for us, I won't complain--although they sound chillingly lonely.

_

Race, Class, and Gender

There's a lot of yammering about race, class, and gender in most of my classes, but that didn't stop me from being surprised by stuff people I really like have said lately. Friend X and I were talking about some other random stuff when he said:

Your parents must respect you because you married a white guy. 

It bugged me immediately that he would think that
(a) Race: Marrying a white person (like him!) is means of obtaining respect? And we're not talking people who might find me less alien because I happen to be married to one of their own. We're talking about respect from my own parents!
(b) Gender: Marrying "well" is the only way to earn my parents' respect?

I was fuming so I went home and told my mom, who proceeded to unleash the class bomb:

Nevermind, she said. Forget it. What does he know? He doesn't even have a good education, he's just a shopkeeper.

Mortifying.

_

Bombs

Came home today to a tiny, sweeeet arrangement of yellow and red Dahlias on our doorstep. No note. In a town that get frequently yarnbombed, I think we'd just been flower-bombed. Thanks, anonymous nice person.

It couldn't have happened on a better day, because all day, I'd had bombs going off in my head. I went to visit a mother who may end up losing her parental rights (CSB has filed for permanent custody of the child)  and when I asked her what she thought would be best for the chid, I could literally see her wrestle with her own shortcomings (incarceration, poverty, lack of education, bad parenting) compare them to the glowing report of the foster parents the CSB worker had just given her (partnered couple, solidly middle class, educated, very earnest and caring parents) and break down in tears saying, "I don't know. I don't know. You know?" It was raw. It felt like I had peeled her skin away from her body in one long swathe in the name of effective reportage and all-round meddlesomeness.

_ 

Two Scenes from a Marriage

The water pipes must have been flushed today because all the non filtered taps have been gushing muddy brown. Normally, I'd just deal, but since we lost our weekly housecleaner over a month ago, I've been doing a deep clean of the toilets on Sunday night. This is Monday morning. All that work wasted. I tell Big A.

Big A: I know, Puppy. I felt so bad. That's why I've been trying to direct my pee on all the muddy water marks.

Me: Yeah. You're a helper keeper.

***************

No real reason why, but when I got out of the shower this morning I simply had to ask Big A.

Me: You know how... when you orgasm... and it feels like everything is radiating from the pelvic area [I'm all scientific terminology and shit, apparently]... because a dwarf's penis... would be proportionately larger than his relative body size....  does it mean that his orgasm would be that much more intense?

[I think it says something about our level of discourse that Big A doesn't look surprised by this.]

Big A: You would have to ask a dwarf that, Puppy.

Me: You mean they didn't cover this in medical school?

Big A: No.

Me: What a woefully inadequate education.

_

Size Swap

Fun clothes swap yesterday: dedicated clotheslines, lots of noshing, unedited critique, even a curtained off dressing area--although everyone was stripping in the middle of the room by the end of the evening.

And I gave away my most "hoochie" shifts to someone all of a foot shorter and way more slender than I've ever been. And shazzam--the clothes looked adorable and right on their new owner! (Apparently, it's only questionably "skanky" when you're showing both leg and cleavage at the same time.)

V and H sized me up with exaggeratedly narrowed eyes and asked if I take a size ___ or ___. And I had to say I've no idea: it's been a while since I've shopped at places that sell stuff by numbered sizes, I'm not modeling anymore, and bonus plus--I have absolutely no idea what I weigh either.

_

The Youngest of Us

There was something off about yesterday--and for most of the day I just couldn't put my finger on it.

The grandparents were home instead of on one of their long walks (interminable rain); Big A was off work and in bed (and spent the rest of the day running a half marathon); it wasn't a teaching day for me (so although I was making phone calls and running errands, it was with a glorious lack of deadline); Li'l A was home too (teacher enrichment day).

Baby A--the littlest, most pampered of us--was the only one "at work" making her own playdough, eating it, and "puddling" to her heart's content hard.

Our extra sweetness to her yesterday was faintly tinged with guilt.

_

About Things

I waited and waited for a CSB caseworker to show up with my CASA child and his mother newly released from prison and currently in a halfway house and working at a Subway franchise and unable to complete court-ordered drug testing or to find a stable house. She plans to fight for custody. Depressing. From any angle. And also, since they never showed (or called): irritating.

I edited the photos on my phone while I waited (no book) and found that apart from pictures of my kids or weird vanity plates (so that's a surprise theme too), there were so many pictures of things that--at some point in time--I had wanted to buy. Apparently, I take pictures of things I want to buy, but never get around to actually going back and buying anything. Win win?

Speaking of things, we had lots on hand to make Baby A's "Red Display" for nursery school. A Sith light saber (from her older sibling), a copy of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, a little Red Riding Hood puppet, her hand weights (2 lbs) that she uses in our basement gym when we're down there, a spirit level, a newly bloomed Hibiscus...

In the Second Week of Late Summer

A wonderful evening, a small potluck to welcome new Antioch College faculty, and the zen presence of Bill Felker--whom I've raved about previously--but had never actually met.

I thought I knew all the feministy English profs in this town, but it turns out there are more than I dreamed of. What if we're the single most popular profession in this town of 3500? Awesome.

_

The Little College that Could

Meanwhile--two hundred yards down the street from us--great events are afoot.

Reading about the resurrection of Antioch College in The New York Times, makes me realize all over again how much there is to love about this little village, how large and generous its soul is. (Looks like the reporter from The Times liked all my favorite village haunts too.)

_

TG(anesha)IF

Looks like my baby, the Mini, may need had to be towed to the dealership (leaking oil, engine light on, setting up the most terrific flapping-clattering sound under the hood). There's no way we're going to be able to drive the one hour to Columbus without hurting the baby.

Come back soon, little one!

But I ended the day at N&J's eating stuffed shells and cookie pizza and drinking big balloons of red wine while the kids played Minecraft ("not MinDcraft, Maya! MinEcraft"--Nine-year-old Pete corrects me, his voice dripping amused horror). And there--dare I say--I'm happy (even with Big A gone away at work).

To have friends with whom you can discuss whether women are always obligated to side with the only other woman in the room while being filled in on Game of Thrones is no mean blessing.

It's the stuff that keeps me warm as the year tiptoes away from summer.

_

One minute of rant; one moment of funny

So... not a good couple of days. I think I may need more help than sympathetic ears and on-tap multi-generational snuggles. Can't really talk about it because (a) I already growled at my parents when they insisted that I tell them (b) mostly I don't know.

I do have a very strong feeling that my squeaky vocal delivery and my default-setting smiles are interfering with everyone's ability to take my weltschmerzen seriously. That and the suspicion that everyone has fallen for my protestations: Really, you guys! Really! Cooking and cleaning up after and chauffeuring and entertaining a family of six while prepping and teaching and grading three courses (90 students; at least twenty seem to e-mail me every day) is nothing. Really, it's easy!

The teaching and a houseful of family IS fun and I'm sincere about being grateful to be able to do it. Then also, feels like there is something I could/should do to care for myself--but I don't know what. Therapy? A drug regimen? More than six hours of sleep? Not caring if the house looks ready for the photo team from Architectural Digest every fucking minute? That the kids get assigned and balanced calories at every meal? What?

________________________________________

We're listening to the radio stories about 9/11 with tight throats and goosebumps. Amma breaks the spell with an earnest warning that none of us should go downtown today. Our downtown =  < 3500 people. Any terrorist coming for us would have to be lost. Or a total underachiever.

_

Bike Path (Out)

In vain is the art of rain
I'm too far away children.
Children: help yourself. Until

I come for you, elastic-ed back. 

It's only nine miles to Spring-

field on a bike. Can feel longer 

walking, walking, walking,

carrying with me my words.

From either side of summer

robin breast and leaf windfall

commune, conspire to beat

in ongoing song, my surprise

the downfall of buried life--

And awake, even wilderness

becomes shelter, so all alone--

every one inherently memories.

__

Glen Helen (Lost)

I imagined myself walking, 

morning made itself a hike

No one knows where I am.

So no one can help me now

(if they wanted to)

If today I woke up 

some other died 

in my place

(with my face)

These roots for rock

lean on mossy claws.

Open, distance unlocks:

the wrong turn every time 

and lengthens why I'm here.

Become beautiful. Unreliable

--like leaves aged and plaid.

_

Sometimes Only Mama Will Do

That's Hot

It was hot today. Really hot. A hundred times hot. So hot that when one of Li'L A's cross country teammates demurred about running with his shirt off because he was too fat, he was told, "Dude, it's too hot for bad self esteem today." (HeHe, Gulp, and Sad Face all at once.)

Nevertheless Baby A's first day of nursery school followed by a potluck at her sweetly hippy-dippy institution of early learning. After I got home from work, I wore a sari and Baby A wore a scarf draped as a "half sari" over her trousers. (I wore my favorite Rosie the Riveter button as a sari brooch.)

_

In the Middle

So Li'l A is in middle school now. And over the weekend, checking on cousin P directly in the path of Hurricane Irene, I was the one who got comforted. P told me that having this child in middle school would prepare me for when he goes away to college. Given the health insecurities of the summer, all I want to do is spend every moment with my kids lolling around, "snuddling," having picnics, but time is so tough. So tight. 


The middle schooler gets home at 6:30 weekdays (Cross-country training after school). Sidebar: And I hate that cross country trains five days a week and meets on the sixth day to race (like Christian gods) but my spacey kid turns out to be unable to play team sports that require him to visualize and this is the kind of activity where he can zone out and still get good-for-asthma exercise. I hate that for two hours a day I have no way of contacting him. He leaves his cell phone in his locker when he runs--naturally. And also, since they run all over the village, the glen, everywhere, I have no idea where he is. Feels so strange. But I am letting go. And then suddenly it's the weekend, but he's invited to some workshop on "facilitation" from 10-3 and then goes away to a friends sleepover. But I continue to let my peacock fly  baby bird go.

And I'm letting go sometimes out of necessity. School now starts at 8:45 and since my first class is at 9 and 45 minutes away, I'm trusting in him to gather his school things, let himself out, lock the door behind him, and bike to school. By himself.

That screaming is coming from inside my head.

_

SUPER 8

Loved it. And the shout out to Dayton was the highlight of our quiet midwestern phase of life.

We've been putting off seeing it because of the Lupus-suspicion related anguish and Big A's even weirder hours. And as we walked into the movie theater, Li'l A said--I look at that poster for Super 8 and  I have no idea what it's going to be about.

I should have taken that opportunity to give my mom a heads up, because she told me later that she kept counting and recounting the kids and kept coming up with just six, so how were they the Super 8? She was thinking of the kids clubs we used to read when I was a kid--like Secret Seven and Famous Five :).

_

Street Fair

Crowds happen, conquer: insurgent,
choric in cheer, sucking sweetness
from sun-slicked haze.
I am astride Xenia Ave
kids in hand, hands so sweaty
their fingers slip, tickle in my grasp

Hellos + kisses fall, leave, re-echo
become a bouquet of belonging
I carry proudly down the street
I am strident;
I am mouthy, masticating,
planting gum for art.

I am completely klepto
with happiness
I'm making my own megaphone
I am become a landmark:
"I am standing
right next to the lady with two kids."

Our dinners slumber in styrofoam,
our water bottle empties to carry lassi.
Fun has been buying a foam-tipped bow
filling a plastic fish with colored sand
and the roar of laughter and trash trucks
after a thousand minivans vanish

_