Showing Off ~ And Achieving Goals

I don't brag much about my kids on this blog, because it's much more fun to complain about them. Conflict is the essence of story, right? In fact, I don't write much about them at all anymore. I'd like to say that it's because I'm respecting their privacy and their agency over their own stories, now that they're getting older, but the reality is, older kids are just less interesting than little ones. Or maybe it's that parenting concerns are less urgent—everything is not a crisis anymore. Whatever the reason, I'm breaking that rule, and the not-bragging rule as well, because….



M won a pageant last weekend!

Each year, his school holds a fundraising event, which is part talent show, part mock beauty contest, in which senior boys perform group dance numbers, walk the catwalk in leisure wear, and show off their talents before a panel of faculty and staff judges and a crowd of adoring parents and classmates.

You'd never peg me for a stage mom or a pageant mom. I'm not even a very good sports mom because, while I get excited when my kids' team in general and my kids in particular do well, I also feel a bit of anxiety about the other team and the other kids. Whenever there's a winner, there have to be losers, and that doesn't sit well with me. (I was the mom who used to tell my kids after soccer games, in lieu of the score, "As long as you did your best and had fun, you're a winner!") I felt that same anxiety about all the enthusiastic young men onstage Firday night. At least the event didn't require much pageant mom-ing. I wasn't backstage with the can of Aquanet or anything. All I had to do was sit in the audience, take lots of pictures, and cheer.

M's participation was part of a long-held dream. He'd attended the contest his freshman year and, when I picked him up afterward, declared his intention of winning the prize when he became a senior. He held onto his dream for the next three years and Friday night brought home the crown in a tight race with a group of boys who dislpyed a lot of great talent, good humor, and inspiring enthusiasm. It's an inspiring story of having a goal and achieving it, and I've refrained, mostly, from saying things like, "Imagine if you'd made up your mind to become valedictorian instead." M, for his part, isn't resting on his laurels, but has now set his sights on the next big dream: Prom King.

Slow Writing ~ No Fun

You've heard of the Slow Food movement, yes? Well, I'm a member of the Slow Writing movement. Three years ago, come April, I attended a Psychedelic Furs concert in Portland with a friend. (The poster, which I, er, liberated from a wall downtown has been hanging on the side of a bookcase ever since.)



There were several things about my experience at the show told me I had a story there, and so I started writing down my initial memories and impressions right away. After a while, though, I got bored with my writing, and felt it was going nowhere, so I set it aside.

Several months, maybe a year, later, I opened the file again and though, Hmm, maybe there is something here after all. I continued to work on the piece off and on until I finally finished and hit "submit" one month shy of two years after the concert. I'd had a place in mind to which I wanted to submit from the very beginning and I had high hopes of it getting accepted there, but I waited. And waited. And waited. After six months I sent the nudge email and got back a "thanks but no thanks" for my trouble. Over the next few months, I sent it out to seven more places, getting rejection after rejection (but at least on a faster timeline). Finally, after a total of six rejections, The Manifest Station picked it up and it appeared on their site yesterday.

A funny thing happens to writing that's been sitting around a long time—you fall out of love with it. You start to notice nitpicky problems. It no longer resonates. But, not this time around. I'm happy to report I still enjoy this piece and I'm happy to see it finally out in the world. I hope you like it, too.

Weekend Things ~ Need to Do/Want to Do

I again went into the weekend with a list--inside my head--of things I needed to get done, and things I wanted to do. I started the weekend with an evening out Friday night with a friend, to a new Indian restaurant (yum!) and to see this movie, which was so good and so sad. The tragic irony of it destroyed the last shred of faith I had in humanity.

E and Z had a friend over Saturday morning, so I put off the housework until a time at which they could help and focused on a couple of need-to-do's that I've been putting off for too long.

Starting sprouts, finally! Winter's half over (ha!) and I just now got these going, which is ridiculous since it takes all of a minute to find a jar and the sprouting lid, put the seeds in, and add water.

I also finally got the Christmas thank-you-notes (mostly) ready to go in the mail (but didn't get them to the box in time for Saturday's mail delivery). Addressing the envelopes led to a whole 'nother project: I updated my Christmas card mailing list with all of the changed and corrected addresses, printed out a set of labels and stuck them to new, clean pages in my address book.

This is what the book looked like before. People are forever moving and getting married and getting divorced and otherwise messing up my address book. I still need to go back and hand-write in the phone numbers (but since the few people we actually call are programmed into all of our phones, I don't feel terribly compelled to do so).

After the boys and I cleaned house, we got one with some want-to-dos:

Lounging around with comics and comic books (I want to long around reading, too, but it just doesn't seem to happen).

And playing outside. The January thaw hadn't hit yet, and it was still pretty frigid out, so we didn't go too far.

In the evening, I took M to see this amazing guitarist. He's one of M's favorites and the tickets were my Christmas present to him. I love going to see local musicians at local venues--it is so congenial and cozy and intimate and the musicians seem like real people, not demigods. I think I could never attend another big-name concert in an arena full of screaming people and be perfectly happy.

Sunday the rain came, and we spent a cozy day inside. On my need-to-do list: sketch and identify winter weeds (I had collected them a few weeks earlier, so I didn't have to go out in the rain).

And on the want-to-do list: knit and read (books piled on that foot rest include: Big Nate, The Series of Unfortunate Events, The Man Who Walked Through Time, Magical Journey, Akimbo and the Lions, and How to Train Your Dragon. Guess which books are mine?).

I had planned to go to a party in the afternoon, but warm rain falling on frigid roads made for treacherous driving and, after fishtailing as far as our neighbors' driveway, I turned around and skidded back home. Instead I cooked a healthy dinner and did another need to do--fixed two pairs of mittens--while watching various Sunday night PBS programming (Father Brown, Downton Abbey, Grantchester).

And then we had a bonus weekend day! In between E's dentist appointment (about which he was outraged--outraged!--that it did not entail missing any school) and M's voice lesson, I managed another want-to-do that I've been meaning to do for a very long time: make Welsh tea cakes, something I remember my mom making when I was a kid (only I didn't know what they were called, but googled "frying pan cookies") and have been meaning to make myself for ages. The boys and I just finished reading The Dark is Rising series, which again reminded me of these (a good portion of the series takes place in Wales...and tea cakes make an appearance). I used this recipe, subbing whole wheat pastry flour for half the all-purpose flour, using yogurt instead of buttermilk, cutting the sugar by 1/4 cup, and using dried blueberries instead of currants (a little Maine twist). They came out delicious--a bit like a scone or a biscuit, with just enough but not too much sweetness. The orange zest and nutmeg were perfect. I'll definitely be making them again.

Finally, we ended the weekend with this sighting on the way to M's lesson, a barred owl who kindly flew down to a fence post and posed for a photo after the third drive-by.

Double Jinx

M and his buddy C had another performance this past weekend. It was at a multi-band show that was, unfortunately, poorly attended, but included some pretty sweet sound equipment, lights, and even a fog machine that gave the place that seedy bar feel.

A couple of members of the band that came before them tag-teamed on playing drums for the boys, since they have yet to find a drummer for their band. They played some of their standards--"Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Black Blood" (a Double Jinx original), "Blitzkrieg Bop"--and added in a few that I hadn't heard them play all the way through yet (some that, perhaps, I'd never heard all the way through even on the radio, which didn't stop "Enter Sandman" from running through my mind when I lay wide-awake at four in the morning Sunday night...and no, I did not appreciate the irony).

Every time they play, I'm just astounded by their confidence, poise, and skill. The two of them get together almost every Saturday and learn and practice songs, some of which they have worked on with their teachers, some of which they figure out on their own, and some they write from scratch. It's the ultimate in self-directed learning. Since the beginning of the school year, I had been fretting that middle school wasn't really challenging M, but now I see that it's really a gift for him to have the time free of homework to focus on something he's really passionate about.

After Double Jinx finished their set, we stayed and watched the really loud band that came after (don't worry, he has earplugs on under that hat). Watching M onstage in his hunter orange cap reminded me of this:

He wore that fuzzy orange hat for three winters straight--indoors and out. Despite the hat, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around those two boys being the same person. How did we get here from there? And will I be looking back at that boy on stage one day, wondering how he got to be the man he will become all too soon?

A Bit of Culture

I have to admit, the boys don't get exposed to a lot of culture 'round here, but this past Saturday, we packed in enough for at least the next few months. 

An elderly couple we are friends with had offered to give us a tour of the Readfield Union Meeting House, which has rare trompe l'oeil paintings on the walls and ceilings.

On our way to the Meeting House, we stopped for lunch at our favorite sandwich spot, Bagel Mainea, where we had the dining area all to ourselves, and listened to a young man singing and playing the guitar.

Afterward, we went to my friend Helene's art gallery, where she was having an event, collecting colored pencils to send to Ethiopia with The Colored Pencil Project. 

We drew self-portraits, and listened to more live music, this time an older guy on keyboard.

Sunday, C took the boys to the beach. I have to admit I was jealous to miss the first beach day of the season, but I had work I needed to be doing (those stories I didn't finish the weekend before!!).

I got some writing done––the second half of a story I had been laboring on for a while––and did some more extracurricular reading (David Sedaris this time).

And I got out for a quick walk, to capture some gorgeous evening light and some more signs of spring.

Culture and nature, a good combination. 

Magical

Did you have a good Fourth of July?

C took the boys to the Kings Mills parade while I stayed home and finished up my workshop comments. He recorded some of it on his phone, and it looked like the usual fire trucks interspersed with flatbed trucks holding Republicans and foot-powered floats of hippie farmers wearing enormous cardboard locally-made cheese wedges on their heads. So I didn't miss much.

We spent the afternoon on the lake, and managed to stave off the thunderstorms until we were ready to leave anyway. C changed his mind about taking the crew to the Augusta fire works and set off a few at home instead, and everyone cast spells with the fireworks the baptist church people handed out at the parade, which I think is a nice poetic justice...if only they knew people went home and avada kadavra'ed each other with the Sparklers for Jesus.

Tonight I took the boys to some live music at Lithgow Library in Augusta (This Way, a band for whom one of my MFA classmates plays bass) and E fell asleep on his hard plastic chair, so it was just as well that they didn't stay out extra-late at a big fireworks show last night...three little fireworks seemed to satisfy them anyway.

I leave tomorrow for my residency. I probably won't be back here during that time (but you never know). I'll be back for sure after the 16th.