at the aquarium

at the shedd aquarium in chicago, with mr. charming owen-pants! and much to finn's delight, we took the train to get there. . .

good december of small things

what else? well, small things. like i embroidered this little train on one of finn's hoodies.

and i got a couple of new notebooks/ sketchbooks--and in them i am writing ideas for children's stories--it is something that, right now, i am actually finally doing and i feel the most excited about. the first story/ poem is called "places where the sun gets caught" and it's about things in november that are beautiful.

this is photo of my boxes and piles of fabric that i have not started yet started holiday crafting with yet. i am existing in a sort of state of paralysis, with long lists of things to make, and feeling unable to start at night after finn is in bed--which is when i could do it. you know but it's semester-end. probably one night, peacefully, i'll just start cutting and ironing and sewing methodically, like an elf. . .
happy boy with tree and excavator! (or elevator, as he calls it)

that's all & i am wishing a good december to all of you, of baking and writing and painting and sewing and knitting and whatever it is you do!
love blue

strands and bits of light and warm places;;squirrel squirrel popcorn string;;;poem [river]

we've been looking for lights and warm places on our cold cold around-the-block walks;;;;we've been making paper chains and snowflakes and santas;;;;peter even strung some popcorn for the tree;;;;;squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel!











here's a part of a poem, thinking about light and all and happiness:

I am watching me watching me with light showing piles of air layers inside it.

I have been running towards it.

I will hold this ship on my finger
To the right or left I will lean
I will not say anything
I will climb in the boat
We are all there
My mother
My brother
My sister
My younger brother
The midwives in their shadows
The psychopomp in grey finery
The seedlings sprouted in little pots
Myself
This notebook
My baby—now a child
Peter
All of the people who come to love us
The cycles of light, food, air water
The cycles of throwing up if you need to

I will hold this on my finger and enter it.
The form is too much and will be inside it.
Inside it the hypnotist

The language is short like
Nuts.
The language is doors or
Hairs.
The language is eyes in
Piles.

And I meant everything I said to the river
When he challenged me he sprung the light sponge-bits of floating bones to the surface
Here are your father’s bones!
Here is a water spider!
Here is everything made of light!
Here is the shadow across it!

That a river is aware of his body being entered—that a river has a body.
That it had a voice which was thinking of me.
That I could return it and say,
I have to decide where I am speaking from, river.
I have to decide what I am as I write.
I am sewing a tooth on my arm
I am repeating silk and grass, worm and moon, spider and dream. . .

The world bears us.
The world bears me.
It is all day long thinking.
The world wide web the world wide web.
The river is thinking
In fits and starts.
It is throwing stars into its brains and mixing it up at night when it can

I am mapping a river in the river
And it is answering itself
Which could be any number of things.

Which is like me. I had bleating and goat-like tendencies.
Everything is tender and new
I am a meaning of it
And I am in the present
So I can’t talk right now. . .

Why don’t you go outside. To recover
And can we talk? We are broke in her window
The spider walks to shore to show us all. It is not wrong to be gazing on life

I am the decision! I have the answer of who is your friend?

The future inside itself in the movement of my body

Poem poem poem in the river there are my father’s dogs, running.

He is catching these walls of no energy exhaustion
We are playing and being . . .

taking a bath in the third house [bath at 28 months with friends peewee boat and peter the whale]

finn is really into his bath friends! he remembers their names and talks about them when he's not in the bath. it's also kind of awesome how he always names his myriad toys "peter" or some variation thereof, when i ask him the name. . .

also today at breakfast he started talking randomly about turtles. he said something like "turtle hungry, mama!" and i said "well what does a turtle eat?" and he said "rocks!"

the finn plus christmas tree series [after trimming the tree--]

what i know about a true kind of education

this is elly, with a "caterpillar" on her head:::::: it was one of my last days of babysitting her! we will miss her charm around this house::::but we will still see her plenty. . .
i got finn some new flannel car sheets in an attempt to get him to really, really love his bed and WANT to sleep there, and sleep through the night. . .something i am dreaming of right now; something that, towards which, i have had to really really reach for any patience that is in my soul. this is only the latest in a string of strategies in which we try to get finn to sleep in his own bed through the night; or at least only waking up once! who knew that humans would need to be taught how to sleep? when i think about it, it does makes sense. and also the fact that finn slept between the warm bodies of peter and i nearly every night of his life for over 2 years. . . and also the fact that we haven't been the most consistent of parents; we put the futon by his toddler bed and we would lie next to him; we put the futon sitting up and we would sit next to him; we put the futon next to his bed and he slept in the futon with us; we, finally, recently, relapsed into letting him sleep in our bed when he was sick. no wonder he is confused! now the strategy is, we took down his toddler bed and set up the futon as his bed, and we sit next to him holding his hand as he falls asleep. i still end up sleeping in his futon with him for half the night, but it is getting easier, and i just have to be consistent and patient. . this sleeping in his own bed, this is its own kind of weaning. sad and happy, sad and happy and difficult, all at the same time. . .




we went to des moines last weekend;; we are staying home and having our own little famiy thanksgiving this year. i wonder if it will feel a little lonely tomorrow? but i am looking forward to centering, starting on holiday crafts and gifts and decorations, and just being in our warm house together during this little oasis in our hectic semester (almost over now, really!). and also looking foward to baking! i am baking pumpkin pie and wheat germ rolls as well as roasting a whole local (kalona) chicken with rosemary and garlic and butter! i have never done that before. . .but i must say that in this whole recent period of my life--in which i am working so hard on centering, feeling okay, and feeling a sense of accomplishment in the here and now-- baking and cooking at the end of every packed week has been a real place for me to go to work meditatively and dissolve some of my stress-flames. where was i? oh yes, des moines. there's a new sculpture park there. . .this is one of the pieces, lit up at night. can't remember its title;; shall we call him the letter man?


been doing tiny bits of patchworking, here & there--


finn and his baba, as he calls him--

and i have been returning to this book, "positive discipline" again and again lately, working through finn's late-night hour-long fits, among other things! that is one thing to be thankful for right now: those fits seem to have subsided, for the moment.


i am also thankful for this kind of glimpse of returning faith that i have had lately;; i am regaining my faith in myself, and remembering that it actually doesn't matter--about teaching jobs, life-paths, money:::that it actually will work out and be fine:::::i mean as long as i can just keep my faith in what is most important to my being (faith that it will return):::that is, my faith in creativity and imagination. i think those are the most important things. my sense of exploration, play, and love. yes. and remembering my true education: my education in experiment, friendship, spontaneity, risk, humor, music, listening, improvising, expression as freedom, everything (even silence) as music, the IMAGINATION that is freely interacting and touching others' imaginations as blessed as blossoming, as my true education.

when i was experiencing my true education (and i think i still am, but the time of which i speak i was mostly in my mid-twenties) i learned to listen. to be open and free. to find and look for fresh powers of being and creating. this sounds nostalgic and glossed-over--and i am well aware that the times of which i speak also had their ups and very-downs--but bear with me, i am trying to get at something here--

this true education--it is a wellspring, i believe, that i can draw from, and it is one that i have faith in. i am thankful for it, and thankful for all of you, my creative friends and loved ones in your various forms, for helping me experience this. it is something i think of so much lately, and am so grateful for. i realize this all may sound vaguely abstract and/or vague. do you know what i mean, about true education?

there is one more way i could put it: my true education was a natural outgrowth of creative friends . . . it happened naturally; it was authentic. it is why i feel like a fraud at times doing anything other than playing music (especially teaching, applying for poetry contests, etc).

i have been doing lots of thinking on creativity itself, inspired by some random reading i've been doing (as in, grabbed-a-book-off-the-shelf). . . more on this later.

happy thanksgiving--

november branches november moon, boy plays drums in kitchen

an anne carson poem for november

God's List of Liquids


It was a November night of wind.
Leaves tore past the open window.
God had the book of life open at PLEASURE

and was holding the pages down with one hand
because of the wind from the door
For I made their flesh as a sieve

wrote God at the top of the page
and then listed in order:
Alcohol
Blood
Gratitude
Memory
Semen
Sons
Tears
Time.

some more halloweenyness and hello november you curling death month

quite possibly we found the last dandylion::::and finn really did love his pumpkin bucket so much:::::::our house at night (especially on halloween) looks like this:::::::and then all the kiddos, wrangled up and on or near the steps of the porch!







i will now leave you with a passage from poet barbara guest;; it is sort of novembery, to me:::

". . .the body moved, but with a stilly motion the way a wave curls over a birthday where nothing remains except the foam streamers, like giggles after deep laughter, like death closing in."