Month: July 2011

Reunion

~ towles ~ 4 Comments

We met at a tree-lined, lakeside picnic shelter on Saturday afternoon. The Kintzes, having juggled nap times and an ornery three year old, arrived late, and we entered the scene carrying a gigantic, unnecessary watermelon. But as soon as we stepped out of the car, we were met with the warmth specific to family – that strange, but instant bond.

The tables were filled with fried chicken and pasta salad, ham biscuits and Chex mix. They were lined with people I hadn’t seen for five or ten years or more, and yet I was known to them, if not in my present state, certainly in some past version of myself, which, in some ways, matters more.

The cousins I tended to when they were babies are lovely young women now – almost the same age I was when I was their babysitter. And yet, somehow, the cousins who knew me when I was in diapers looked the same to me: still my senior, but otherwise only vaguely aged. There were too many people missing, which I guess is the hard thing about family reunions; they were there in photographs and conversations. It was a scene in which I could easily picture my father – the reason I was there – and if I had the power, I would have put him on the picnic bench eating fried chicken, wearing his suspenders and belt and that smile that always seemed to know more than it was telling.

Family reunions are sort of funny if you think about them. All those disparate parts, far flung, gathering for one hot afternoon, or one long weekend, in hopes of conjuring up connection. It doesn’t sound like it would work, or that it might even matter that much. Why pack the kids in the car for a five hour drive so that a collection of relatives can lay eyes on them/us, or vice versa, for such a short time?

I haven’t quite got the answer, but I know that it matters, and that I’m glad we were there. I know that there is something great, something respectable about considering and honoring one’s lineage, making peace with it, even, if that’s what it takes. I know that it’s something special to hear someone you hardly know speak fondly of someone you deeply loved, and that there is something wonderful about the way someone who knew you as a child regards you as an adult.

I know that it is a beautiful thing to see my dad’s sister’s kids watch my baby girl wriggle from my arms and crawl away from the shelter, so that the raindrops from a sudden summer storm could douse her. And that that moment was made all the more meaningful, for me, at least, because my dad and his sister aren’t here anymore. No one called us to to give any guilt trips, or to suggest someone’s feelings would be hurt if we didn’t show. We came because of that invisible thing, specific to family, that requires our presence, and because we wanted to capture it, if only for an afternoon.

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An Experiment with Self-Improvement

~ towles ~ Leave a comment

On Monday, Baby E had her one year checkup. I often go to doctor’s appointments with a brief list of questions in my mind, and every time I make my mental notes, I am astounded by the responsibility entrusted to us as parents.

Before each of these doctor’s visits, I feel a little the way I did upon discharge at the hospital, when the nurse tells you everything that could potentially go wrong with your baby and then whisks you away in your wheelchair, holding a precious, burritoed bundle, to the unknown. Whoa.

Before my kids’ major checkups, I fear that I will forget to ask the most important questions, or that some huge, but yet-unknown-to-me parental failing will out itself at the appointment. I strive to look as presentable as the mother of two small children can, as though the doctor will take one look at my under-eye circles and the workout clothes I wear every day and deem me incompetent.

This ritual is ridiculous: no one is going to care whether I have on makeup or not at my baby’s one year checkup, and yet I give it weight, compensating for the insecurity that shakes my confidence and the confidence of almost every mother I know: getting it wrong.

As it turns out, Baby E was, and is, thriving. I remembered to ask all the questions on my mental list. She cried, but not too much, when they gave her her shots. We left, well-tended and on to the next thing. But the prep work that went into that appointment got me thinking about how all our efforts, in everything, reveal a little – or a lot – about who we are and what we care about, and where our insecurities lie. Since parenting is, for me, my most consistent gig, I began thinking about the rules I’ve set for our household, especially for Claire, and how those rules reflect on me.

A few, for example: C may only watch two hours of tv a day, tops; her treats usually have to be earned, not expected; she is only allowed juice (diluted!) once a day.

I know: some of you without kids are thinking, “What are you running up there, a prison?” And some of you with kids are thinking: “Are you kidding? TWO hours of TV? Her brain is going to melt!”

So, I’ve taken a couple of these rules to heart, just to see if I really believe in what I’m enforcing and if life will improve if I, not just Claire, abide by them. I never watch TV, so I’ve started limiting my internet access to no more than two hours of web and email, holding myself to the discipline of not checking email every time I pass my computer. It is amazing how much time can get sucked away by the internet, and how numb I often feel after too much time on Facebook or looking around even at interesting, engaging things online. There is a much richer life to be had in writing, books, folding laundry, cleaning out my closets, talking to friends, etc. and I feel more human when I participate in this sort of mundane, real life stuff. So far, so good.

Lately, well, OK, for my whole life, I have been terrible about drinking enough water. I would much rather have hot tea, juice, Pelligrino, or champagne. I mean, who wouldn’t? So, for the next thirty days I’m challenging myself to drink the recommended amount of water each day – 64 ounces. Honestly, I am kind of bummed out about this, since I really just do not like water that much, but if I expect my children to follow suit, I’d better get on board or change my tune.

This self-improvement/experiment at enlightenment may be kind of silly. As I write about it, it feels a little like a delayed New Year’s Resolution or Lenten promise. Its purpose, though, is sincere: Am I teaching my children, even at the most basic level, about who I am and what I really believe, or only about what I’ve been told to do? Let’s hope the former.

Beautiful Time

~ towles ~ 4 Comments
By Nic-C

While reading the New York Times the other morning, I was distraught to find not one sampling of good news. Not one. Every ugly headline I read had something to do with destruction on both a global and a personal scale. And for days afterwards, columns of bad news piled up around me, rising like cinders, threatening to distort my world’s simplest joys.

More than that, the bad news made me think about the world we are handing to our children, to my children, and how I might help them cope with the onslaught of negative information and experience (i.e. middle school) that will inevitably come their way.

When I was growing up, I read and wrote poetry to process and lend beauty to circumstances that were not always the best, and some of my favorite memories of my father, a strapping, stoic farmer, are of his recitations of poetry at the dinner table – something that shaped my love for language and the comfort I’ve taken in it. So, I decided that I would help my family (and myself) combat the stress and uncertainty of each day with a few minutes each morning dedicated to the consideration/reading/hearing/tasting/smelling/seeing of something beautiful.

We call it “Beautiful Time.”

Now, this is a lovely idea in theory. And, actually, it’s a lovely idea in practice, except that our three year old has her own conceptions of beauty, and TV happens to be one of them.  Each morning, we drag Claire away from “Jack’s Big Music Show” to share with her the things we hope will eventually sustain her when NickJr. is a thing of the past: truly great music – not just classical, but rock, folk, country and alternative – beautiful, interesting art, and kind words, spoken and written.

For now, we recognize and give in to our children’s line of vision: we allow Claire to put on her princess dress and dance to Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Major, even if it’s a harried morning; on occasion, we use her art as a “Beautiful Time” focal point; we ask her what she thinks is beautiful, how she feels when she makes something beautiful (“happy”), and what makes her feel loved. In this way, her perspective (and soon, Elizabeth’s) will shape our grown up perspectives on beauty in all its forms, bringing with it a peculiar joy and curiosity.

Absorbing artful sustenance for whatever lies ahead seems a good practice for anyone unwilling to surrender completely to the world’s painful realities. It can be a reminder of how best to process bad news – a lot of incredible art has been born of hard times – and how to find a center point of beauty and strength to return to in otherwise unwieldy chaos.

On Tuesday, we looked at a wood carving of a flower Andrew’s dad made when Andrew was Elizabeth’s age. It is one of his simpler carvings, but beautiful, and both our girls loved holding it and running their fingers across its intricate detail. Claire was so enamored by the idea of “Pete” having made the carving that she lingered longer than usual at the kitchen table, and didn’t even ask for the TV to be turned back on, allowing me, even, to read her a poem far above her reach, but filled with beautiful words. I’ve posted it below to give you your own bit of sustenance for whatever your day may hold.

From Blossoms

By Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Genius

~ towles ~ 2 Comments

On occasion, my husband, A, and I have conversations about what we would do if we had an inexhaustible amount of money. Since I will likely never have to make good on this, sometimes I try to impress him and say I would give away half and invest the rest. But if I’m honest, I tell him I’d spend a lot of it on continuing education, enrolling myself perpetually in classes covering everything from literature and art history to astronomy and biology. I would want to be responsible for completing a lot of interesting, difficult homework for these classes and to get a real grade, even if my grade ended up not being very good (see: astronomy).

I am not owning up to this so that you will think I am smart, but because it is (somewhat embarrassingly, strangely) true. There are just few things I love more than school, and there are few ways to recreate the joys of discovery found in a university setting once your time is up. Until now.

A couple of years ago, I discovered TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.   Each week, experts in their fields speak for twenty minutes on their newest discoveries, creations or innovations, and TED, God bless ’em, puts these talks on the world wide web for free. Like that favorite college professor, the presenters are all, almost without fail, charismatic, convincing and convicting. They cover fascinating topics you wouldn’t otherwise know or care anything about, and, before you know it, their passion for natural light or leadership or the printing of organs has hopped from their minds and hearts to yours in a matter of seconds.

The constant presence of the Web is, in my house, anyway, not always the best thing.  Like the Pied Piper, the charming, insidious chimes of our cell phones and the ever-presence of the internet and its relentless deluge of (often useless/empty) information,  leads my family away from one another, because family – even at the very happy, early stage we are in – takes emotional work and active investment, while our electronic “communications” allow us to function at B-level all the time.

But the makers of TED have somehow redeemed the internet for me, making it, in my mind, what it should be – a vehicle not only for spreading ideas, but inspiration, artfulness, intrigue, beauty and light in a world that shifts all too naturally into corners of desolation, defeat, cynicism and darkness. And although it doesn’t assign homework (am I the only person who’s disappointed about this?), TED does allow for the kind of interesting follow-up conversations that I crave, especially after a day of saying “no-no, no-no” to an eleven month old and “yes, of course I want to see how (big you are/well you can crunch your pretzel/beautifully you twirl)” to a three year old. Watching TED reminds me that there are still amazing and incredible things happening in the outside world, and it allows me to be a part of them – if only vicariously, for now.

To watch: http://www.TED.com

From the Writer Formerly Known As Towles

~ towles ~ 6 Comments

Since my last post on this blog, I’ve written in other corners of the Web and otherwise, moved cities, had another child, and reluctantly started a new blog, quickly followed by a complete end to my writing presence, online and otherwise.

For a while, friends and readers asked when I would begin again, to which I responded with a sort of sheepish shrug and mumbled comments about my crazy kid(s). And for a while, I didn’t think I needed to write anymore, at least not during this particularly family-absorbed phase of life. But what I have found, as my second child nears her first birthday, is that my brain is actually still writing stories. I just haven’t allowed it an outlet on paper or computer. This has resulted in some totally random Facebook status updates, wild dreams, fantastic monster-tornado-spawned anxiety, and well-placed fears that somewhere down this old Cheerio-scattered road I’ve lost the writer formerly known as Towles.

Which got me thinking about inertia. All things in motion tend to stay in motion, including imagination, creativity, and the desire to write. And the tricky thing about writing, like exercise, is that once you stop, it is really, really hard to begin again. Liken my brain right now to a 350 pound man faced with a fifty yard dash.

But begin again, I will, and I’ll do it here. If you’d like to watch and encourage me as I journey back into the writing life, keep your subscription to what used to be Words, Wanderings and Other Joyful Things, and invite some friends. “The Interior Life” feels like a more appropriate title for me these days. Not that I’m not joyful. I am! Ever more so! But I spend a lot of time indoors with children and within myself rather than wandering and reporting as before.

If you want to unsubscribe, please do. I would say it won’t hurt my feelings, but it might … just a little … and when embarking on a journey like this it is important to be honest.

Stay tuned.