i went back. we had passed this on the street while taking a walk. when it registered a moment or two after we passed it, i had to go back. out of context, it made me laugh aloud. i showed it to jen and she and i both decided on a 3 year old. i mean, it’s a FREE 3 year old!!!!
now….everyone knows THAT’S just not true. i think wryly about the lifestyle difference between people i know who have never had children and people i know who have had 2-4 olds (who grow up into snack-devouring-soccer-playing-music-lesson-taking 8 year olds who grow up into gatorade-guzzling-granola-bar-munching-tennis-playing-nike-sneaker-loving-makeup-wearing-hair-dying teenagers who grow up into university-tuition-paying-care-package-receiving-ramen-noodle-eating-dorm-room-paraphernalia-moving-apartment-sharing-car-driving college students who grow up into….. )
the air coming through the windows this morning felt cool. almost chilly. it has been a long while since the last time i could say that of a morning here. we have had a very hot, very humid summer…not my favorite combination. but today. it was different. and it made me feel immediately homesick. that happens every fall for me. maybe it’s a melancholy recognition of the passing of time, years zooming by. maybe it’s the season-change-thing…we know grey days are lurking right around the corner. either way, i feel homesick.
it’s a time when i miss long island the most, recall my growing-up years, pine for the autumn at millneck manor and long deserted-beach walks at crab meadow. a time when my sweet momma and poppo are really present for me in their absence, if that makes sense. i yearn to talk to them. a time when The Girl and The Boy seem oh-so-grown-up now, steeped in their own adult-lives, having adventures and being a dynamic part of this world, far away, without the benefit of hearing ‘good night moon’ every night. i know that every evening they roll their eyes at my goodnight texts to them, but i figure that someday they will understand. homesick.
yesterday was my father-in-law’s 85th birthday. we called columbus and sang ‘happy birthday’ to him. my momma and daddy did that every year for me and i try to carry on the tradition with the people i love. he laughed and told us he had gotten back from dinner at texas roadhouse and was listening to an old record. he listens to old records a lot. i suspect, because he is the man he is, that he gets homesick. i can tell by his eyes that he would totally understand me if i told him how i felt.
so today, if you are spending time together with someone, memorize it. if you are lucky enough to spend time with your momma or your daddy, please hug them. if you are one of the fortunate parents who have their children nearby, hold on just a little tighter and look into their faces when you say goodnight. relish it.
when i saw aly a few weeks ago she was holding her sweet baby boy landon in her arms and she told me that every night he goes to sleep with this album playing. ian joked that landon doesn’t make it much past the first three pieces, so maybe they should start it in the middle so they would be able to hear more of it. either way, hearing snippets or the whole hour of lullabies, i am touched that this little boy is gently going off to sleep with this music playing him into dreams.
i recorded this album after many others. i had already recorded six original cds, three christmas albums, two retro 60s/70s albums, two hymn albums and several singles by this point. but many of the shops stocking my albums and listeners who had purchased albums asked me about a lullaby album. it was with the picture in my heart of rocking (or walking) my own children to sleep that i researched lullabies, wrote a couple original pieces and spent time in the studio at yamaha artist services in nyc recording this.
some of my most precious memories are of My Girl or My Boy drifting off to sleep as i sat in the rocking chair in the nursery watching the seasons change out the window. i would read goodnight moon and sing quietly to them. then i would tiptoe out of the room, careful to avoid the spots in the old wood floor that would creak under my steps.
and so, it is an amazing thing knowing that there are moms and dads out there in the world, rocking tenderly or softly slipping out of their nursery with my album AND GOODNIGHT playing their cherished baby into sweet sleep.
download the album AND GOODNIGHT on iTUNES or CDBaby for your nursery iPOD
we often walk at the end of the work day. we go inland to a lake trail and walk a couple times around the lake, somewhere around 6 miles or so in total. we mostly hike around the lake clockwise, which means that we are watching the sun come down across the lake at the beginning of our walk, a time when we are still processing the day and haven’t yet gotten immersed in the trail. sometimes we are so engrossed in talking or thinking-silence that we have to remind the other to appreciate…”look at that sunset,” one of us will say.
sometimes we will get up early and, with our coffee mugs, go sit on the rocks and watch the sun come up over lake michigan. every time we are witnesses to the beginning of a new day this way i think we should do that more often.
sunrise. sunset. it makes me think of the song from the musical fiddler on the roof. it’s truly a beautiful song, simple, sung with great heart. the passing of time. so fast. wendy wrote to say it was time to bring logan back to college – for his second year. i could so so feel how that felt, remembering times i had brought My Girl or My Boy back to college.
“Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play? I don’t remember growing older When, did, they? When did she get to be a beauty? When did he grow to be so tall? Wasn’t it yesterday when they, were, small?
Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset Swiftly flow the days Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers Blossoming even as we gaze Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset Swiftly fly the years One season following another Laden with happiness and tears.”
(Sunrise, Sunset – by S. Harnick, J. Bock)
life somehow fits in between these sunrises and sunsets. and somehow, some days, we just seem to miss it. too many things to do, to worry about, to perseverate over, to check off lists. every time i vow to honor the sunrise and exhale with the sunset, somewhere in between i realize i forgot. i’ll try again tomorrow.
SUNRISE. SUNSET. a morsel from the painting A DAY AT THE BEACH
i keep a calendar. my sweet momma kept a calendar. the written kind. she had the old-school kind that you buy the yearly refills for, with two holes in them to line up with the two curved rings of metal on the holder. she wrote on it every day: appointments, important things, birthdays and anniversaries, dates of import, big events, the smallest fragment of time memory she wanted to keep. i guess that’s where i get it from. i love my old-fashioned calendar. i look forward to getting it at the dollar store every year and i keep a mechanical pencil with a good eraser in it. i write in it every day. and at the end of the year, i have always sat down and read through the year, re-living each day, sometimes a good thing, sometimes hard.
if i went through my calendar, even for this year so far, i would find moments i didn’t want to forget. days that were tough, days that were pretty amazing. i would read about My Girl calling out “mom!” and running over as i walked into where she was working and i could recall -way deep in my heart- exactly what it felt like when she introduced me to a friend and said, “this is my mom!” i would read about the manifest destiny of cucumbers and pickles, a funny-made-me-laugh-aloud debate over wine with My Boy. i would read about the gluten-free-dairy-free-egg-free chocolate cake my husband made me and the day we stayed in bed to read a book all day. i would read about lots and lots and lots of walking, hikes near and far. i would read about potlucks with our dear friends and laughter and wine and conversation lasting well into the wee hours of the evening. i would read about late late nights with each of my nieces and laughing till we were snorting. i would read about spending sweet time with my sister and ashes floating on the breeze over the lake. i would read about the quiet peace of the canoe and the sunshine and endless conversation on the pontoon boat. i would read about antiquing and the vintage typewriter i had fallen for that 20 sought out for my birthday. i would read about gatherings in our home and at friends’ houses, sharing time with our community of people. i would read about difficult days of worry or times of sadness. i would read about the hours of working together with d: writing all these posts for our MELANGE and designing all the products. i would see that it’s been much much more than 208 days in a year. it’s been 208 days in my life and every moment has counted. whether or not they are all joyous, all successful, all funny, all productive, they are all good.
recently, while perusing facebook (which i actually don’t do all that often) i came across a post by My Boy. he had made homemade ravioli for dinner. wait! what?? homemade ravioli??? now, this requires making pasta from scratch as well as stuffing it with a delicious tuscan sausage mix. just sayin! this is the same person who, long ago now, used to be able to live on honey buns and swedish fish. he has amazed me time and again with his creative cooking and the photographs he has sent of yummy meals. one day he grilled shrimp out on his deck for dan and me and d. just as thoughtful as the birthday he made me mac and cheese after a long evening i had spent volunteering, but, i have to admit, much tastier.
the first time My Girl made us dinner we had gnocchi and an excellent sausage sauce. i hadn’t had gnocchi in years – since i had it with the hot chics in montana – and her recipe immediately made it onto our ‘what-should-we-have-for-dinner’ list of possibilities.
these are the same two human beings who would ask, ” what’s for dinner?” now i find myself asking them. funny how cooking creativity blossoms in each next generation.
opportunities. to drink in life. they happen every day. sometimes we scoop them up, with the scooping-zeal of a small child building a sand castle. sometimes we choose to sleep through.
this chicken nugget was inspired by a late-late-night-laying-on-the-rocks-by-the-lake viewing a meteor shower. it was one of those moments we chose.
i remember one freezing cold wisconsin winter evening. i was driving My Girl to an oboe lesson in town. in a crazy-fun moment we opened the sunroof, put on our sunglasses and played loud summer music. we laughed and it was indelibly etched into my memory bank. it could be cold or it could be a faux-summer drink-in-life. another day we drove across the state, donned southern accents and strode around an eau claire, wisconsin country music festival, pretending to be from “naaaaashville” but here in wisconsin because we had “kin” who lived here. the accents and pretending stuck with us all day and the memory still makes me giggle.
there was the time that i had to rent a vehicle while mine was being repaired. the only thing available was a big (and i mean big!) pickup truck with a extra-long bed lined with rubber. My Boy was little at the time and he (an avid car/truck fan at the time) couldn’t get over how big the pickup was and remarked that the bed was so big you could sleep in it. that night, unbeknownst to him, i carried out extra comforters and sleeping bags, pillows and flashlights and pulled the pickup further up the driveway. when it was time for sleep and he was saying goodnight, i asked him where he was going. he replied, “upstairs. to bed.” laughing, i led him outside to where i had set up our camp, in the bed of that rented pickup under the stars and dewy night sky.
sometimes you just have to say a loud affirming YES to opportunity. scoop it up. my goal is to do that even more. less sleep. more scooping.
delicate wings, barely visible…a reminder that each of us has them…right there…ready and waiting. sometimes we search inside for answers; this painting tells that story for me. we stoke up the fortitude. we call on peace to enter our souls. we ask our heart to hold on. we forge through what will invariably challenge us. but our wings, gossamer and full of grace, gifted to us by a magnificent Love, give us the lift. we know that no one can clip those wings. they belong to us and we can soar back (or forward) into ourselves. when we are ready.
to view or purchase david’s painting on his gallery site, click below:
the crystal clear water was cool around my feet, cold actually. the current pulled at my flipflops, necessary – for the rocks below were slippery and i didn’t have the cool sandals My Girl had on. the hot-hot high altitude sun blazed into my hair; it made me think i should have worn that new packable hat i got last year.
i scanned the horizon, a 360 of mountains and trees and sagebrush and blue-blue sky. and this river. going on and on. as far as i could see, it meandered through the landscape i was reluctant to leave.
and i stood in the water. never-minding the feeling of almost-numbness of my feet. because in this moment, i could feel. the very hot of a brilliant sun, the very cold of snow-capped mountain runoff. this time of cloudless sky and the murmur of the river. this time of being with my daughter. this time of dreaming and imagining and creating scenarios in my mind that would allow me to stay in this very spot. this time of (in this case, metaphoric) cloud-gazing.
every good cloud-gaze creates a story. every good cloud-gaze builds a memory. every good cloud-gaze gives you pause to breathe. it’s the same with your feet in the river, your blanket on the beach, your chair in front of the bonfire, your boots on the trail. make time, i say.
my sweet momma’s birthday is today. she would have been 97. she died shortly before her 94th birthday but remains a force in the world. her kindness and her zealous belief in kindness continue to ripple outward. i heard beaky firsthand when My Girl was talking about the world and its issues and said, “the best thing i can do is to be kind to people.” i’ve seen beaky firsthand when My Boy has stood firm in raising pride awareness.
now, i know this story has been told before, but i risk being called redundant to tell it again. back when my momma was 93 and facing down stage four breast cancer having had a double mastectomy a few months prior, she told us she felt like she had accomplished little in her life. there could be little farther from the truth. but she insisted she had no title (“engineer”, “architect” etc) to put after her name. we knew she had, however, three manuscripts she had written decades prior – stories about the family dachshund named shayne – stories she had tried to have published with no success back in the day. stories told from shayne’s point of view and simply wholesome and delightful, we searched for – and found – the manuscripts. and immediately got to work.
my amazing husband david illustrated the first of the trilogy, named SHAYNE. i laid out the text and the graphics of the book itself, designed merchandise like an “author” shirt, banners and a shayne iphone case for momma, built a website, contacted newspapers and we hastened to put together a release party with a reading and press and a celebration with brownies and asti spumanti at her assisted living facility in florida. when we told her – on MY birthday in march (for what could be a better thank-you-for-my-birthday than this?) what was happening on april 11th, she squealed like a school girl and started practicing signing her name with a sharpie. it was BY FAR one of the pinnacle moments of my life to see my mom – the AUTHOR- hold her book, read aloud to the dozens of people who attended and sign “BEAKY” on her books as her fans lined up to purchase the earliest copies. eighteen days later, my sweet momma was no longer on this earth.
david has since illustrated both the second and third books. the second, SHAYNE AND THE YELLOW DRAGON, was released a couple years ago and today, on her birthday, i am so excited to tell you that the third SHAYNE AND THE NEW BABY will be released shortly. the trilogy will be complete! my sweet momma, beatrice h. arnson “beaky” the AUTHOR would be pretty jazzed to sign each of these, but i know her blessing is on them as she reaches through the invisible line between heaven and earth.
we will keep you posted on the release. i have this sweet vision of so-so-many-many-books being sold (to individuals, to schools, to libraries, to dachshund owners, to families with small children, to families with dogs, to dog lovers, to teachers, to scholastic press or to some entity that sees how important it is to have dreams come true – at ANY age) that we might start a beaky-beaky foundation and help – in some well-thought-out way – in momma’s name. if you have any ideas, let us know. we want to keep beaky’s ripples going.
reverse threading 