Come away from the place
Where laughter echoes
Through sun on silken strands,
And haunts worn by small feet
Still patter.
Come where shadows grow longer,
Trees taller,
And all things older
More softly, more clearly shimmer.
Cross over with me this altar
Without sound or breath
Or movement.
Take something
And leave something behind.
This, still.
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.
:::::::::::::::::
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.
Won't you please come to my garden,
And journey to far away lands?
Such wonderful, marvelous sights to see,
We'd look at the world so differently!
There's beauty enduring,
And in its first blush;
Exquisite, each one, to behold.
And creatures of curious workmanship!
More perfect and precious than gold.
There's ripening treats on this magical day,
No one will find us tucked so far away.
You whisper to me and I'll whisper to you,
As afternoon fades into night.
No matter how long 'til we journey again,
This moment is golden and light.
I'm not sure if lullabies qualify as a musical form, but lullabies certainly beckon to me. I have always had difficulty falling asleep...I'm not sure what all the reasons for this may be. Certainly I have a roaming mind, but as a child I went through a few disturbing experiences which made sleep hard to come by. How welcome was a soothing poem or lullaby in those days, as it allowed my thoughts another direction to travel.
On the other hand, it strikes me that lullabies and bedtime poems are sometimes oddly troubling themselves:
"The Rock-a-bye Lady from Hush-a-bye Street
Comes stealing, comes creeping..."
Perhaps not the most reassuring sentiment, but somehow my mother's voice always filled me with comfort and made the meaning of the words a pure delight.
At any rate, I've always wanted to write lullabies...words that soothe yet also entice the imagination as one drifts off to sleep, perhaps with a little melancholy and mystery as well.
It is nighttime, after all.
:::::::::::::::::
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby,
The moon’s in the sky tonight,
It glows like a pearl
And belongs to the girl
Who smiles with a secret delight.
No one knows what makes her happy,
And no one knows what breaks her heart,
But she watches the world
As its dreams come unfurled
And she sees all its magic impart.
Sometimes she lingers in silence,
And sometimes she hides in the trees,
And when she runs over the mountains she laughs,
And her laughter is heard on the breeze.
If you should happen to see her,
She’ll whisper and beckon to you,
So reach out your hand
And strike up the band
Remember what’s old becomes new.
She’ll sing: rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby,
Come waltz down the lane with me,
A curtsy and bow
Is all we need now
For there’s no grander company.
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby,
Close your eyes at the end of the day,
May happiness be your horizon
And I'll smooth all your troubles away.
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby,
The moon’s in the sky tonight,
It glows like a pearl
And belongs to the girl
Who smiles with a secret delight.
:::::::::::::::::
p.s. Oh, and the baby? His name is Graham and he is our neighbor and we think he is the sweetest baby in the entire world and my girls keep asking for a little brother and I keep saying let's enjoy Graham.
Dear reader, I've been under the weather lately. I won't bore you with the details except to say it's nothing that would warrant a note from my mum requesting me to be excused from PE, carpool, or making dinner...although if anyone wants to forge that note it would be worth ten times its weight in gummi bears, if you know what I'm saying.
Just...sick.
When I'm sick, I don't have many great ideas about getting better. I sort of ignore the whole thing, if possible. Yes, I drink more fluids. Yes, I wash my hands. Yes, I tell everyone I'm feeling fine.
But I do have one trick up my sleeve. I do have one secret cure:
I still run.
Do you know what happens to a body that is feverish and racked with spasmodic coughs when you take it out for a run??
It shocks the living daylights out of it.
As you take the first few steps, it looks at you and says, "Really? Is this your idea of a joke?"
But if you refuse to dignify passive aggression with a response, the body's insistence upon affliction will falter. It gets befuddled. It becomes confused. A moment ago, it thought itself entitled to a morning of self pity and hot tea, yet now it finds itself in the great outdoors, engaging in activity that fairly reeks of good health.
So what does the body do?
Why, it capitulates, of course.
The bold choice of running trumps the body's sick note, the audacity of exercise steamrolls its pathetic sniffles, its delerium and cough, and with every step it grows stronger, clearer, better.
It really is the most amazing cure you could ever imagine.
Is it rooted in sound medical knowledge or is it on par with the professionals of yore who believed a good bleeding was in order when a patient had the misfortune of remaining sick for too long?
Because why is it, as the day wears on, the fever and cough return with a vengeance? Why is it my body seems to take a perverse delight in making me feel ten times worse than I did before?
Is this its way of saying:
Take that, you crazy throwback to the Middle Ages!
Take that, you deserver of maggots, leeches, and plagues!
Who thought she was too immortal to stay in bed today?
Who's gathering ye rosebuds now??
There was a girl and her cello,
A girl and her violin,
And a girl who plays volleyball, completely done in.
There was a tadpole rescue, not a minute too soon.
Hairstyles and storytime upstairs in the bedroom.
A pretty table,
Good things to eat,
And dancing as the sun went down on light hearted feet.
Dear reader, last week Izzy travelled to Kansas City to participate in a national competition of middle school orchestras. She began a countdown to the trip several weeks ago. She began packing two days in advance, configuring and reconfiguring the items in her suitcase. And every time she mentioned the adventure, her face wreathed in smiles and she levitated off the ground in bursts like a fledgling bumblebee.
Indeed, her enthusiasm was so contagious it didn't even cross my mind to prepare her for the possibility of homesickness.
So on the second night, when I received a flurry of texts from my little traveller saying how much she loved and missed me, how much she wished she could be at home, and how she was locked in the hotel bathroom crying, I felt adrift with helplessness. I called her and we talked about ways to deal with the situation, but she still had several days of adventure ahead of her and I knew she would struggle with these feelings again before it was all over.
And then I had a brilliant idea! I emailed her an audio file of a poem I recite to the girls each night before they go to sleep. It is the very poem my mum used to tell me at bedtime when I was a little girl--a happy, drowsy memory I cherish to this day.
I don't know if my dramatic delivery was quite the cure I was hoping for, but it seemed to help. We still exchanged a rash of phone calls and an ambush of texts. She missed us all sooooo much.
And did we ever miss her! What a bright presence she brings to our lives, our lovely, quirky girl.
We were thrilled to have her back.
And of all things, her orchestra took second place! Winning a trophy that was taller than Izzy herself! But even sweeter to my ears--she said her homemade luggage tags were the coolest thing ever and each time she looked at them, she thought of how much I loved her.
Hold tight to the rope, my child,
But with your free hand
Reach.
Collect the sunbeams, the birdsongs, the honey breeze~
They will bring to your dreams
A meadow of flowers opening to the sun,
All things humming, sweet, and warm
Where a story-teller keeps a place beside her
Just for you.
Only let the laughter
Slip through your fingers
And echo in the memory of this world.
How your song of joy will make an old man
Sitting far away by an open window
Close his eyes and smile.
Yesterday Roger and I did something so insanely spontaneous I'm surprised it wasn't covered by the 6:00 news. Living in Las Vegas as we do, your mind is no doubt racing with the possibilities of what that might be. Well hold onto your seat, dear reader, because this is sure not to disappoint! We took a road trip. A road trip! To a place where you don't have to dust for fingerprints to see if autumn has been sneaking around, a place where the beauty of the season fairly revels in its glory. See?? Crazy hijinks, like I said! In my book this is the equivalent of swinging from chandeliers.
At any rate, I cannot tell you how happy I felt to be in these mountains, to breathe this air, to see these colors, to feel the slanting light, to experience a moment of stillness. It reminded me of a poem I read in a college lit class (probably freshman) and adore to this day. It's by this guy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and although woefully lacking in highwaymen who wear bunches of lace at their throats, you can't deny it's otherwise a pretty decent jingle.
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:
What a lovely thought, pied beauty.