Promises promises

Loyal readers (all three of you!), I must postpone the second section of the attic memory for one more day--unwieldy thing, it's taking more time than I thought to untangle it and make it coherent... Keep your eyes out for it in a day or so.

A long Christmas post for a long Christmas season. Part 1

Christmas is starting early in our house this year, which goes against all my childhood traditions.   We not only decorated mini trees today, but we chose and chopped down our big tree.   And I am loving this extended season.

We are calling our tree "Mr. Crazy Man," as he is waving his extra-long arms wildly about, and he is a bit odd-looking.   Perfect.  He's also a strange and pretty lime green, which I was drawn to at the tree farm.   Now that we're home, I'm trying to convince myself that he is not dehydrated or sick.    My wise and sweet husband, who is an expert gardener, pronounced the tree to be perfectly healthy, and he's urged me to just enjoy the lovely tree we chose.   So I am.

Mr. Crazy Man tree is patiently awaiting lights and decorations, and by the end of the day today, our home will be decorated for Christmas.   I am almost as excited as the girls, who are bouncing more than normal, and constantly breaking into mangled Christmas songs.   

Still, it's taking a mental adjustment for me to get a tree in November, because when I was a little girl, we sometimes didn't get a tree until a few days before Christmas.   Just like any other kid, I was enamored with the whole magic of the season, and I longed for a house decked with evergreen swags and shiny baubles all December. But my mom and dad had other priorities.  Focused on running their small company, they were doing all they could to keep enough clients to stay in business.  What time could they have had for worrying about decorating?  

Never one to sit around just wishing for something, one year I decided to take Christmas decorating into my own hands.   It took some planning.  I was a latchkey kid, so finding a few minutes alone wasn't the problem.  But getting the stuff down and out was a challenge, since I was only eight years old.  

We stored all the decorations in the attic, a squat and freezing place accessible only by the ladder that we kept in the garage.  Of course, I couldn't manage getting the ladder by myself, so I improvised.   First, I made a ladder:  As a base, I used the storage chest my parents had for vinyl records.  Think benchseat meets Danish minimalism, c. 1962: cherry sides, padded leather top, and round aluminum casters.   I would love it now for its design.  That day I loved it for its height.

Somehow I ignored the obvious problem of building a tower on a rolling cart, and I managed to stack up a few of my thickest storybooks and some phonebooks, each thick enough to give height and be slippery at the same time.   These I topped with a wooden footstool so notorious for its instability that it had become a doll's table.  All said, this stack rose to a height of about four feet, which gave me just enough of a boost.  I stacked a makeshift "stair" of books next to the tower. I pushed the cart a few times to see how wobbly it actually was.  I leaned a broom against the cart.  And then I climbed.

 

I've got unnatural balance, I think.  Standing on top of the teetering stack, with the broom in one hand, and my other hand on the frame of the attic opening, I must have been something like the Cat in the Hat, and I remember feeling just as clever, and just as defiant.  Finding leverage from some burst of adrenaline, I jammed open the hatch with the broom handle and shoved it into the attic, where it fell with a disturbing crash.  Then, God knows how I did it, but I reached my hands into the frame of the opening and swung myself up and into the attic itself.   

I was a good little girl, and I did not even know how to swear then.  But if I did the equivalent sort of feat today, it would be peppered with some colorful, self-congratulatory language, marveling at my physical prowess, etc.   I would not be modest.  But then, there was no celebration.  I simply headed for the goods.

The attic was just as chaotic as the rest of my childhood home, and unlabeled towers of boxes crowded around me in the darkness.   Christmas magic had imprinted the shape, color, and feel of the ornament boxes in my memory, though, and it wasn't long before I had shoved my way through a few stacks to find the crucial few I needed.  

Tied in twine, top flaps warped from being tuck-folded, the Magical Christmas Boxes were the closest thing to treasure I knew.  It took a huge reserve of self-control to not rifle through the tissue right there in the attic.   Okay, perhaps it was less self-control, and the more the fact that it was freezing and dark up there, and that my parents would be home soon.   Regardless, my goal shifted from getting the boxes to getting out.   

I need to stop here to ask: have you seen how small an eight-year-old girl is?  Ada is only seven.  My heart beats faster just thinking about how tiny her little face would look peering over the edge of an attic hatch;  I think of her swinging her legs over the edge, and I am literally cowering in my chair with vicarious anxiety for her.  

Of course, Ada is much more sensible than I was.  She is the kind of girl who cautions.  She can readily spot "a bad idea."   She is also the kind of girl who prepares, and if she were to climb into an attic like this, it would not be on a teetering stack of slippery things, it would not be without a flashlight or a coat, it would not be without a plan to return to the ground.    

Like I said, Ada is more sensible than I was.

Tomorrow.  Part 2

Tuesday Treasure: A Gift of a Poem

In keeping with my Tuesday treasure hunts, I'm going to show you another treasure I found this week.  But unlike most of my "hunts," I didn't look for this one.  Rather, it found me.  I've been walking on air all week because of it.

My friend Irene at wordloversunite gave me this poem on Sunday.   I literally swooned with delight at it.   It shimmers and glitters and thrills--a real treasure.   Allow me to hold it up for you to admire:  

Simplicity 8953

- for Kirie

The pattern promises to make a princess

so I gather together tulle, organza,

duchess satin and dupioni silk

to spin a girl’s dream: flouncy slip

beneath shimmering skirt, puffy sleeves,

bodice edged with beaded rosette trim.

I don’t warn her about the clock

or tell her how glass slippers sometimes shatter.

I stay up till dawn, add a tuck

so that it fits just right

and later as she prances and twirls

I vow to hold her close

should white steeds dissolve into skittering mice,

the royal coach to a rotting pumpkin,

the prince lost in moonlight, then

caught dancing with someone else.

- Irene Latham

You can read more of Irene's work on her blog, http://wordloversunite.blogspot.com/, and in her book, What Came Before .  I am so honored that she would be inspired to write something so lovely for me.   I treasure it.   Thank you, Irene!!

Candy corn is still in season

Just in time for Thanksgiving:  a skirt I made for Ada.  

Here she is in her new candy corn skirt. Isn't she sweet?  

Photo hunt Saturday: Reflection

I don't know the exact rules for the photo hunt over at tnchick, but I'm playing along this week because I loved the theme: Reflection.    Here is fairy Esme, admiring her year-old self as she tries out her wings.  I love how her hand trails dreamily along the glass...

"I Love You This Much" Award--for me?

For me!  Awarded to me by my friend la belle Belette Rouge, this is the "I Love You This Much" award. 

What a sweet gesture. And I assure you the feelings are mutual, ma belle!  Thank you!!

If you haven't seen her blog, you should.  Aside from being a great writer and observer of life in general, she's got moxy and a sharp sense of humor--and an eye for fashion, too.  What's not to love?  

There are rules that come with awarding and receiving this. Here are they are:
Rules: Link to the person who started this award (That's GEnYZe).
Link to the person who "loves" you, in my case, it's La Belette Rouge.
Post the rules on your blog.
Tag 7 people at the end of your post and link to them.
Let each person know they have been "Loved" and leave a comment on their blog.

Okay, I like rules. Here are the blogs I tag:

1. The Storialist   The poems on this blog are so consistently amazing that I am addicted to it.  I remain in awe.  Storialist, I understand if you are unable to respond, as the format of your blog doesn't really allow for it, but know your work is loved...
2. BariJ.   This amazing girl is someone I am lucky enough to know in person.  We were childhood friends, and I can tell you she has always been a force of nature.   Her blog is worth watching.  So are her designs--from handbags to fabric to accessories.  I LOVE IT.   And you will too.   
3. Wordlovers Unite.  I recently discovered Irene's site and her poetry, and I'm so glad to recognize her as a talent and someone I read regularly.  
4. Mommycoddle.  Thoughtful and inspiring, this blog is honest and clear-eyed.  I enjoy every post.  Her art is beautiful, too.
5. Six and a Half Stitches.  A lovely blog, with great perspectives in both photos and what she has to say about the world and the domesticated life.
6. Posy Gets Cozy.  Alicia Paulson is a fine writer and artist, and her blog is one I love looking at.   She's so talented, and so sweet.  Her photos and ideas for the domestic life are wonderful.
7. La Belette Rouge.  I don't know if it's in the rules or not, but I'm reawarding this back to her.  I read all her posts, and I am consistently inspired, entertained, and moved by her writing.   Spend a few minutes reading her, and you'll agree with me.  

A few of these blogs have formats that don't really support badges or posts citing rules.  It matters not to me whether or not you link to the award or acknowledge it at all; what does matter is that I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your blog.  Thank you for taking the time to share some of yourself online.  I know I'm not alone when I say I appreciate it!

Facing Facebook

I did it.  After a year of putting it off, I finally joined facebook.  Clearly, I'm no spring chicken (as you can tell by my grannified expressions!). If I were in my twenties, I would have joined long ago without a second thought.  Of course, now lots of my own contemporaries (think late thirty-somethings) are getting active on facebook, and I predict that over the next few years, there will be many, many more people networking there.

And as enjoyable as it is, it's a bit weird, right? As you may have noticed, I have a tendency to overanalyze and dwell on things, so now I'm obsessing thinking about what I'm doing on facebook.

I have to say upfront that I like the networking aspect.  It's fun to catch up with people I knew long, long ago, and to see what friends far away are doing. But the "making of friends" is more puzzling. I have befriended people I only know from email, and I have sent requests to people who are more akin to acquaintances. I'm a word girl, and that word "friend" is so sticky.
I think I have a few categories of people I'm re-meeting on facebook:

• People I love dearly, but are far away. 
  
• People I loved in the past, but lost track of as life moved us from place to place.
  
• People I knew in highschool (marginally, very well, or otherwise), and who I really enjoyed seeing again (or emailing again) at our 20th reunion.
  
• People I just met recently, either through the blog or in person. 
  

Are all of these people friends? Well, as I'm writing this, I'm beginning to think they actually are friends... I do have connections to each of them, and so maybe "friends" isn't such a confusing term after all...

With all that said, however, I am catching myself regressing to high school insecurity once in a while. What if I "invite" a friend and they reject me? Don't remember me? Don't like me? Ugh. Why do I want to think like that? But I'll admit these thoughts have crossed my mind since I started playing around with facebook.

There must be some happy medium...

Maybe a facebook network is a like little neighborhood.  If you look out your window, you get a glimpse of what your neighbor is doing, from raking the leaves to having birthday party for their baby.   You might not be close with all of these people, but it's nice to be part of their community.  Some neighbors you invite in for coffee, while others you just wave to as you bring in your mail.   It's a connection, regardless of how intimate it is.

That's what facebook is, I think.   Even the most mundane updates of a friend ("so-and-so is getting ready to go to the big football game") is comforting in a way.  And keeping in touch is hard enough these days; it's nice to feel community with people who have surrounded you in various stages of your life.

I was just contacted on Facebook this week by my friend Kristen, a girl who falls into the "I loved dearly in the past" category. She moved away when I was in fifth grade, and I was devastated. Her mom had sage advice for me then, and I have recalled the lines many times since then. "Make new friends, but keep the old. Some are silver, others gold." Facebook is a way of keeping all those friends in one place--silver and gold alike.  Are you on yet?  Would you like to be friends?