What more can I say? The kid just rocks. And he’s got it all figured out.

A giant live oak tree stood in arabesque on the hill above the creek, a proud centenarian but with arms so long and weary they dug back down into the earth for relief. While the sun sank behind it without saying goodbye, as it does on these arid, cloudless days, Ford and Chas cavorted among the branches. Ford wanted to climb higher than possible, satisfying each inch up the tree with laughter and a hearty jump back down. Chas, for his part, interested himself mostly with the mulch around the base, a dusty combination of dead leaves, acorn bits, bird guano and the small particulates of decomposing plastic gelato spoons from the chi chi grocery store nearby. I cringed as he faced the wind, gleamed with joy and flung a handful of detritus into his face by accident. Mycoplasma, Avian flu, corneal scratches buzzing through my head while Ford demanded “Look at me now, Mommy! Look, Mommy! Mommy, look at me!” I quickly scan Chas, while Ford hops back down to the ground.

No harm done, no tears. Ford looks back up at the heart of the tree, a perfect vortex of boughs and tailored for sitting, tempered and rounded from a century of children. He turns to me with raised eyebrows, and asks me to lift him up to the top. I remind him of my jammed thumb, my short height, and promise that Daddy can help him up next time. A couple walks by, the man understands Ford’s gesturing without hearing a word. I tell Ford that I approve, the man can help lift him up to the top of the trunk. As the man lifts him, I watch every ounce of Ford’s enthusiasm diminish instantly in proportion to height. Tenatively, the man releases his hold on Ford, and enables him feel his presence atop the grand oak, above our heads. Perched so high, he claws that trunk like a castaway cat riding dark seas. While his eyes help round out the terror, his voice says it all, as he quivers his shaky plea,
“mommy can you please get me down?”

Week 2 in Personal History series.
Is there a child that isn’t immediately enchanted with her first visit to the beach?
I have this fantasy that I will live another life that I can completely devote to the study of echinoderms.

More SPT bloggers here.

I have loved horses since I was four. Our vegetable garden backed up to a small pasture, and a paint named Skip Bug would stretch his neck over barbed wire to eat our corn. After school, there were days when I learned patience, by standing at the fence, waiting for the girl to finish riding practice; she would often let me ride atop Skip Bug as she walked him in circles, during his cool-down. My lofty perspective gave me certain power, and I felt great pride as I looked over the garden each time we passed, above the tall stalks of corn, with the sun setting behind our roof.

When I was in college, I took a job waiting tables so that I could buy a horse of my own. I learned what it means to own a horse. In the morning I’d drive in darkness to feed the horses, through patches of mist on the farm roads. The grain smelled like molasses and I would sit in the hay loft and finish homework, while listening to the soft munching below, interrupted occasionally by the hens, clucking about the stalls.

When we moved to California, Damon bought me my first dressage horse. From this horse I learned to fear injury and to prioritize my goals. He threw me one morning and I broke my pelvis, but I healed and I kept riding. Within a month, however, I was pregnant with Ford. So I went back to the basics of ownership, enjoying the simple things like sunny showers under the eucalyptus trees, and once again I practiced the art of letting go.

I have two saddles; one here at my parent’s house in Houston and the other in our garage. They wait with me for the opportunity to ride again, meanwhile enjoying piggyback rides with the kids and basking in the sunny hope that it might indeed again happen.

More self portraits here.

We took the kids to see the Basquiat exhibit at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Ford validated my anticipation, eagerly counting recurring symbols and remarking that “he uses crayons!” I knew the portfolio would captivate Ford, with the cartoony anatomy and cars and expressive style. But I didn’t realize how much it would synchronize with Ford’s interests. And I enjoyed it, too! Even if I couldn’t really stop and breathe much throughout the show. Our tour was characteristically whirlwinded; we bounced around the gallery, cross-referencing to find the ties that bind the work, punctuated with requests to go to the bathroom, get a drink, go home, no stay, go to Austin. Chas, for his part, snoozed in the stroller.

It’s New Year’s Eve in Houston, and over the buzzy drone of Chas’ snoring I hear little groups of people hollering one block away, the rat a tatting of firecrackers and guns, and the horn of a freight train downtown. Our house and much of our block is asleep. But if you walk barefoot out onto the front porch, and sit on the swing, you can see Christmas lights smiling at the raucous din of nearby celebration. The turning of a new year unfolds as I swing back and forth in the stillness. The family of gliding squirrels is probably shaking on one of the grand oak boughs above me as bottle rockets whine above them.

Being a homebody on New Year’s eve never felt so luxurious. I think I got over being homebound on New Year’s eve four years ago when we made Ford.

Cheers to that and a new year!

For starters, you get interrupted quite a bit when you read to them. And it’s not always the “Why?” kind of questions. Sometimes, you have to play dictionary. If you read “The Night Before Christmas” to them, you might get a “What the hell is a sugarplum?!” or a “Bloody Hell! How do you know what the elves know?!” Other times, interruptions are more the result of commentary, which is endless, throughout the day and every day. Try reading the Grimm classic tale, “The Bremen Town Musicians,” as I did the other morning:

A certain man had a donkey, which carried the corn-sacks to the mill indef-
“Nutsack!”
-indefatigably for many a long year; but his strength was going, and he was growing m-
“Nutsack!”
-he was growing more and more unfit for work. Then his master began to consider how he might b-
“Nutsack!”
-He bagan to consider how he might best save his keep; but the donkey, seeing no good wind was blowing
(snickering from Damon across the room, acknowledged)
ran away and set out on the road to Bremen.

“Nutsack!”

The Christmas buzz that had us sailing into hyper drive has slowed to a sobering halt, and the quietness in our house is chopped into pieces by the babble of children at play. Here I am, taking a picture of Chas, on the back porch, trying to open the back door. I stand here laughing from the dining room because he has smooching his nose up to the glass, making funny faces at me:

Unintentionally, I took a revealing self portrait today. It’s me, the me that I see, the reflection of my children. I see my creativity in the toys I make for them, I see my attitudes in the way I dress them, my discipline in the way I may sometimes remember, but not always, to cut and comb their hair and brush their teeth. I see my self-esteem in the way I keep my house (dirty windows and all).

Perhaps my perspective is just as distorted as the self portrait; in the act of mothering my mind is sometimes so absorbed in the middle of every minute that I lose point of reference, and my closest point of navigation is my limbic tunnel, that impulsive, instinctive maze of motherhood. My rational mind is often in left field. In content imbalance, I’m satisfied. When I put things into greater perspective, I feel so fortunate. Left to calmly breathe and think in quiet, as I am doing now beside that little boy you see above, now in deep slumber, I tend to call upon the more rational part of myself and remember that it’s all good, it’s all part of the process. Breathe in, breathe out.

Other self portraits can be seen here.

I don’t pretend this is a craft blog, but to mark my time on this planet I have to log the hours I spent making these little wee people into the wee hours preceding Christmas. Behold, Ivy Elizabeth Walker, cloaked in the safe color of mustard and in the forbidden woods with her bag of magic rocks! (Reference to the movie “The Village”)

And here are a grandmother and her grandchildren, open for interpretation; I’ve been using them to play Hansel and Grethel:

And lastly, Grandma fairy, made in the likeness of my mother-in-law (and who she forgot to take back home with her):