tollipop

bring it on like that

Dear reader, I know.  

I know I said I'd be taking a little break from Tollipop and I will, but yesterday morning the most unexpected thing happened.  I was getting the girls off to school and looking forward to a day of cleaning the house, doing some writing, and pretending it's autumn when my husband mentioned he had an errand that needed to get done...in Utah.

I said:  I could do that for you.

And he was all: No, you don't have to...really?  You would??

Except I didn't catch that last part because I was already in the car, driving.

My very own roadtrip...one which presented itself out of the clear blue, one which would take me to the land of obvious autumn?  

Oh, man.  You should have seen me go.  I was gone before I could remember to have breakfast, take a shower, invite a friend, or verify if I even knew how to get to Utah.

Once I was done with the errand, it only made sense to keep driving.

Just to see what I could see.

Such beauty of such variety.  At this time of year, I am always reminded of a favorite poem:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things— 
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; 
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

Práise hím.

Everywhere I turned, the perfect yellow cardigan warmed me in all its dreamiest shades and hues.

Of course I took a moment to hide in the woods.  

Do you ever do that?  Hide, I mean?  You should try it sometime for like, three minutes.  It's a bit spooky, mysterious, and a total time travel back to childhood. 

What a beautiful, glorious day.

It reminded me everyone needs an escape from time to time, a real one.  I rarely register this thought because...well, I rarely register any such thoughts pertaining to reality.  My mind is such a crazy escape in and of itself that my greater concern is to cling to the schedule at hand.

My friend calls that growing up...only she said it more gently.  In some ways I'm inclined to agree but I am telling you: I have a very dreamy, wandering mind and it's a constant effort to keep my head in the same game everyone else seems to be playing.

On the way home I realized there was a wasp in the car.  A big, buzzy one.  At first I thought I should panic and drive off the road, but I played out the scene in my mind and my hysterics were very unconvincing.  It's a great disappointment to me, my inability to eclipse a nuclear meltdown.  How could I ever be the romantic heroine?  I can't cry on demand.  That's why, in my school play, I had to be a tree.

At any rate, I noticed the wasp had landed on the window ledge so I unrolled the window and I'm not kidding--that guy hung on.  We were cruising along the highway and he just hunkered down and dug deep. It was amazing.  I don't know the last time I saw such passion, such a fierce will to live.  

What could I do but show respect?  

So I rolled the window back up and worried I was going to get the living daylights stung out of me the rest of the trip. 

At any rate--being out on the road.  Driving.  Listening to music, letting the miles pass and my thoughts wash over me, taking in the beauty of my surroundings.  Getting home that night and feeling Caroline hug me and listening to her say it felt like forever since she'd seen me.

In a way she was right.

It did feel like forever. It felt as if I'd gone so far and been away so long, when in reality I'd packed her lunch that very morning.

That is the beauty and magic of a rare, last minute roadtrip.   

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p.s. It strikes me October is a poor choice of months to announce a blogging break, given this is one of my favorite times of the year.  To answer several emails I received inquiring as to the nature of my project...I'm just trying to write a story.  To call it a book seems a bit lofty at this point.  It's not a children's book, per se, (though I'm a bit incredulous yet always touched by your suggestions to write and illustrate such a book...you are aware I draw only one thing, right?  Just a melancholy, wistful girl with the occasional rabbit or fox?), but it's doesn't fall in the adult genre, either.  

Hopefully it will be the kind of thing I like to read best--a good story that's well written.   

I was working on it last year but got a bit derailed with our move, etc.  It's something I want to finish and I'm haunted by the words of a former professor who told me there will always be a good reason not to write.  

Ha, what did he know?  

I have, like, a zillion good reasons not to write.  

At any rate, hence the break from Tollipop.  But I don't think I can completely break because it's October, darling, and tomorrow I want to show you some pictures from a recent trail run which proves autumn has come to the desert.  

Distant and a bit aloof...but still breathtaking.  Still every bit as appealing in its own undemonstrative way.

hiatus

Dear reader, hello!  How are you doing?  Did you have a nice weekend?

I've been thinking I might take a little break from this space...probably not a long break, and actually not a real break at all.  I've been thinking I should try and work on some other writing projects, which will inevitably cut into the time I spend here.

At any rate, I'll miss you very much.  Is that odd to say?  Well, I will.  Working on personal projects is more of a lonely endeavor--no one pops in to share or say something funny, though such distractions are always welcome.

Sometimes I enjoy solitary tea parties, sometimes the table feels empty.

I'll be back when the table feels empty.  xo

island style

Dear reader, you know on those nights when you and your husband are trying to figure out what to eat and you finally narrow it down to two choices: Hawaiian or Korean, and no one is willing to budge beyond that point??

Well, Island Style is here to save the marriage.  

It's fusion, dear reader...not hip, mincing fusion which makes you feel like a dolt for saying you'd prefer tap water when the correct response is sparkling, forcing the entire restaurant to inhale so sharply they choke on their purple carrots and all the candles flicker and die??

No, this is Island Style, where the guys call each other brah, the Hawaiian equivalent of bro, which is much cooler than bro but doesn't really affect me anyway since I'm not cool enough to use either.

This is the melting pot of all melting pots, this is where the first dish you see someone eating will be what you want to order because if you don't, you'll never stop wishing you did, this is where if you get the cold wheat noodles the cook will cut them up in front of you using a pair of kitchen scissors that could decapitate a moose.

This is where the kimchi will make you wish Willy Wonka had lived in Korea so you could be reading a book about a kimchi factory instead of a chocolate factory, so you could dream about kimchi grass, kimchi flowers, and an enormous kimchi river that the chubby boy would fall into and get sucked up a pipe to the radish room.   

This is where you'll get the best fried rice of your life.  Yes, your life.  Don't roll your eyes like fried rice doesn't move you, like it's not purple carrots.  Don't foist your ennui for fried rice upon the rest of us simply because you haven't tried it island style.  

Don't be so jaded and world weary, brah.

Because you will leave Island Style feeling happy.  

Why?  Well, the food has a lot to do with it but there's something else...

Just go and you'll see what I mean.  

overcooking for the season

Dear reader, if I waited around for stew weather to materialize, I'd never eat stew.  

Nor pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

I'd never be able to set the world record for wearing this yellow cardigan six days in a row.

You see my point, don't you?  

I can't afford to wait for these things.  I can't miss out on my favorite season of the year simply because it only exists around here like some über cool boyfriend who is too emotionally distant to show he really cares.

You know?  Like, the signs of his affection are so subtle you feel stuck in an airtight chamber wondering if it's normal not to breathe.  

No way.  

Bring on autumn.  Bring it on like a sloppy puppy who will pant and lick you, who quivers at your touch and gazes at you every day like it's love at first sight.  
Bring it on like that.

Bring on boots, cardigans, aromatic cookies, and hearty bowls of stew.  

That's what an imagination is for, darling.  

So you can have the best of both worlds...in this world.

getting my wilderness on

Dear reader, society dictates I must conduct myself with a certain degree of civility. I smile and exchange pleasantries. I fold laundry, moisturize, and return library books (except for this one time when it was a really good book). I brush my teeth, stop at red lights, wait my turn, talk about the weather.  I sit in music recitals and clap when the time is right.  I attend church, place my napkin in my lap, and lock the doors at night.

For the most part I feel it.  Sometimes I phone it in, but generally it's for real.  

But I also feel this: my wild side. 

Do you have a place you can go to be wild and free?

For me it can be almost any place, but the desert is best of all.  Sometimes I feel a million miles away out there, it is so vast.  I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun.  I stretch.  I breathe.  I take a few steps.  My head is feeling better already.  

This morning I found a little green bug.  He was hiding in a cloudburst of yellow wildflowers and I decided I couldn't affort another fiasco like the recent missed opportunity of catching the midnight blue bee, so I plucked him off his bloom and deposited him in my skirt pocket.  I cringed for the next forty minutes, picturing him bouncing around in my spandex, but I was still so chagrined about not catching that bee.

The tadpoles continue to hang out at the creek--a tight knit group of like, four. I can't tell if they're growing or what, they seem to be in no rush.  I'm beginning to suspect some degree of juvenile delinquency there.  

And the butterflies!  I ran through a cloud of Painted Ladies and thought I was in fairy land.  

The cairns are as strange and mesmerizing as ever.  They are always changing, making my path both familiar and filled with discovery at once.  They appear and disappear, arrange and rearrange.  Do you believe in the ancient Norseman, dear reader?  Do such things make you wonder?

As my run drew to a close, I noticed a bird of prey circling overhead.  He was so close I could see the dark and tawny markings of his wing feathers.  His scream pierced the air and I stiffened.  Was he a trained falcon from the Middle Ages, warning me of danger ahead?  I held out my arm like a waiter in case this was the luckiest day of my life, but no dice.

He wasn't buying it.

When I got back to my car, I grabbed my camera and fished the bug from my pocket.  He was remarkably chipper considering his ordeal, though not about to exchange best friend lockets with me anytime soon. Still, he graciously posed for these pictures and I marveled at his coloring and wished I could keep him.

But he's a wild thing at heart and there's no changing that. 

Nor should one try.

There's only acceptance and fitting moments of civility in between.  

caroline's world

On our walk to school this morning we talked about schoolmates and why some kids (and people in general) think it's okay to use bad words...her topic, not mine.  Between the two of us we came up with quite a few reasons, me especially, but I kept the part about emergency swear vials to myself.  

Hopefully she will never remember the day Izzy got stung by a scorpion.

Later that morning I brought some laundry into Caroline's room and took a minute to enjoy what she makes and how she plays.

I don't know why it is, but all three of my girls have spent hours creating dolls and their many accoutrements from paper.  I can't tell you how this intrigues and delights me, as I did the same thing myself when I was their age. I made scores of dolls and dressed them in scores of outfits. I also made lists and pages of drawings of everything they might need to survive.  

Is that a bit obsessive?  Maybe.  But I was often troubled and this helped me sleep at night. Like, I would literally lay in bed thinking about my dolls and their lists, and the feeling they were set for any situation soothed my mind until eventually it was able to let go.

It makes me happy to be in this room.

It's like feeling childhood again with its peeks into wonder, innocence, and dreams.

When Caroline comes home from school, she is usually very happy.  She is also generally quite willing to practice her cello.  She loves the sound it makes and mentions this periodically as she plays.

Sometimes I sit and work with her, but more often I simply enjoy her music flowing through the house--deep, rich, and sonorous. 

After dinner, if there's time, she's often to be found outside with the volleyball.  

She runs around the yard until dusk, keeping a tally of her bumps.  So far 31 is her record.

Through homework she is still talking, still wanting to tell me every little detail when now it is late and I am tired, and I am more of the mindset to simply get things done.  

But lately I've been thinking about the following quote shared by a friend:

The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.

                                                                        Peggy O'Mara

This sobering thought resonates with me deeply, making me reflect on my own inner voice and what I hope my children will hear as they sail forth into life.  I hope my voice caresses them.  I hope I think twice before I use a destructive tone.  I've learned I can be firm and yet still speak in a way which says you matter more.  

I hope my girls' inner voice is steady, calm, and reassuring.  I hope it is both gentle and strong.  I hope it knows when to be quiet.  I hope it allows them to recognize their feelings and feel confident about their ablities.  I hope it allows them to be decisive.  I hope it allows them to believe.  I hope it never jeers, deflates, or waxes sarcastic. 

If I have a part in creating my children's inner voice, and I'm pretty sure I do, I hope my love for them translates into solid ground and a set of wings.  I hope it makes it easier for them to understand and accept God's love.  

Because I know this acceptance does more to lend encouragement to one's inner voice than anything else, as well as the power to propel one through any challenge, through any heartache or disappointment...ultimately intact, with peace and an awareness of beauty all along the way.

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eta: I had to return and clarify, as the glare from my halo was beginning to blind me.  Do I always speak with a voice that says you matter more?  No. Sometimes it says your messy room matters more.  Or my bad day matters more.

But it's an effort I take seriously.  I've always noticed the phenomenon of "public" and "private" voices, and how ironically the private voice isn't always as kind (or in control) as the public one.  I try to have one voice.  Some days this comes very naturally.  Some days it requires more discipline plus a run in the desert.

Sophie and Izzy's kindergarten teacher had a lovely way of speaking to her students--a warm, sing song tone that made even me want to jump up and clear the scissors and paste if that's what she was asking the children to do.  I love basking in the voices of people who speak beautifully--who show a respect for others and a love of language in the way they talk.  Not a cultured, affected voice, mind you, but one that is warm, genuine, and thoughtful.

That's the pattern I'm trying to follow, too.  

printstagram

Dear reader, have you had the joy of becoming addicted to Instagram, the camera filter app which takes about seventy years off your face and smears it with milk and honey?  The filter app which makes a picture you took five seconds ago look all warm and nostalgic, and you catch yourself gazing at it and longing for the good ol' days?

But then you realize, hey!  These images are like ether in the atmosphere--fleeting, vaporous, intangible--and you wish so badly you could have a real, incarnate photograph, just like the ones in the good ol' days, only cooler.

Well, wish no more.  

Social Print Studio is here for you, dear reader, in the form of Printstagram--a happy, user-friendly site wherein you can convert your pretty Instagram pictures into tiny books, t-shirts, and photos you can actually whip out of your purse to show your friends, rather than making them peer, enlarge, and swipe away at your smart phone.

Imagine the possibilities!

 
The prices are phenomenal, the products great quality, and the delivery was like, three minutes after I submitted my order.  Practically.   

I can't wait to go back for more.  

p.s.  Social Print Studio offers a number of compelling services, not the least of which is to create a giant piñata made to your specifications.  If anyone takes them up on that, please let me know.  

there's a chill in the air and i'm not talking about the weather

Things have been different around the house lately, and it's hard to explain exactly what I mean.  

Curious, perhaps.  Out of the ordinary.

Maybe it's nerves, but I keep getting the funniest feeling someone's watching me...  

Oh, listen to me go on like a superstitious old crone (cue glittering, coloratura laughter laced with hysteria)...but lately I've been almost certain I'm not alone!

The oddest characters have been emerging out of the woodwork.  We smile and exchange pleasantries, but I'm not at all convinced they're being sincere.  
 

And most troubling of all...she's back!  

Evilyn's back.

Just the other day I was tidying the kitchen when I heard the sound of someone clearing her throat.  I turned to see a girl standing in the doorway.  She could have been no more than eight years old, but her face was curiously pinched, like that of an old lady.  She was pale, the tendrils of her hair clung to her forehead, and she stared at me with dark, glittering eyes.

Hello, she said, in a whispering voice like that of a baby doll, I'm Evilyn.  

Why, little girl, I exclaimed, However did you get inside this house?!

My name's Evilyn, she repeated, taking a step toward me, And I want us to be the best of friends.

I gripped the edge of the counter, suddenly feeling dizzy.

I need to sit down, I said.

Oh, dear, cooed Evilyn, are we having one of our spells again?

Nonsense, I protested, I don't have spells.  Just a little tired, that's all.

Dizzy, perhaps?, she enquired, following me to the chaise where I sat down.  

How on earth did she know?!

There now, close your eyes, she said, stroking my feverish brow.  She smelled of currant bushes, of brambles, hedges, and thorns.

But why was I suddenly so flushed?  

And why did Evilyn's hand feel like ice against my skin?

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Happy October, dear reader!  I hope there's a little bit of creepiness in your life these days.  Delicious creepy, not call 911 creepy.  I hope there are pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and spicy hot chocolate, harvest moons and walks with friends. 

Did you remember I had a little giveaway going...Lucy Sparrow, if I'm not mistaken?  Well, I'm thrilled to announce we have a winner and it's Amy A.!  

Amy, darling, I'm so happy your number was called.  I'm sure you and little Lucy will become fast friends. Let's get in touch soon to exchange mailing information.  

To everyone else...thank you for your kind comments and for playing along.  I don't express often enough how I enjoy the company of your words.

I must say I wish I could offer you all an actual prize rather than something in lieu of the prize.  I had the crazy notion perhaps I could make an offer to give a piece of artwork to anyone who wished to send me a mailing address, but I already know how terribly short I fall of such good intentions.  Your enthusiasm for my artwork really tugs at my heart, though (especially those who have been playing along for ages)...if only there was more time!

I suppose I'm wishing, in lieu of the prize, something lovely comes into your life for which you've also been waiting a very long time.

Now what could that possibly be?