Thief of Joy

 

It’s middle school season for my eldest and his peers: applications to private schools submitted, decisions made, and futures solidified. These are admittedly privileges of Seattle wealth, opportunity, test preparation classes, and IQ. I am the first to acknowledge that fact, as a woman who paved her own way through public school in this city, and self-funded her college education through hard work and a few academic scholarships. These choices of privilege were not part of my childhood. My destiny was in my middle-class hands, and it was entirely my job to erect my own damned ladder and rise.

Bear with me for a moment as I veer off in a seemingly disparate direction. I recently heard this parenting analogy and it’s all I can think of lately. In a nutshell, we prepare for parenting our children the same way in which we prepare for a trip to Italy. We buy the guidebooks, we study the maps and memorize all the inner workings of public transportation. We book our hotels and secure our well-qualified guide for the leaning tower of Pisa, who surely will have some novel, never-before-heard explanation about the four-degree lean. We have our entire itinerary planned out to the very last detail. We board the plane, lean our seat back into the knees of the poor woman behind us, and close our eyes with the secure knowledge that we have crossed every last “t” in preparation for this adventure. The plane’s wheels hit the tarmac twelve hours later, and the pilot announces, “Welcome to Peru. We hope you enjoy your trip.” Wait, what?

Many of my friends have landed in Italy this spring with their middle school acceptance letters. They are basking in the glow, because their children have landed in the country for which they have been preparing for the past eleven years. I am the first to wholeheartedly admit that it is a little bit hard for me to join in celebration. If I am to be a truth-teller, I recognize  that these feelings are a mainly a reflection of my own history of being a competitor, an achiever, and a goal-accomplisher. I have always been a round peg, and it’s hard not to want the same for my son, but he is wired differently and let’s be honest: he doesn’t even care. (Which is so very beautiful.) Yet still, having my son follow the unscripted path is hard for this mama who, despite my very best intentions, cannot help but succumb to comparison with my girlfriends and their children.

Here’s the thing, though: parenting Malcolm has been a journey of absolute immersion into the unexpected and unplanned. With him, we have been exploring the countryside of Peru for the past eleven years. There is no Colosseum here, but have you ever been to Machu Picchu? I have, and it’s beyond explantation and it makes no sense that it even exists, but it will take your breath away the first time you experience it. There are terraced potato fields here, a type of superstructure you never even knew existed from your extensive research on Roman architecture. The language is a different one than I had studied in my phrase books, but it is beautiful and I’m learning vocabulary I would not have otherwise needed to know. Also, what I’ve come to realize here in Peru is that I soak up the sun at a different latitude with my boy, but at its essence, it is the exact same sun as the one that bathes Italy in a warm summer glow.

Traveling in Peru without the guidebooks, one must come to the realization that in order to survive, you have to throw out all your expectations and instead just bask in the fire of the experience as it burns before you. Sometimes it is so beautiful that my heart nearly bursts: witnessing my boy’s intrinsic empathy, compassion, independence, self-sufficiency, encyclopedic knowledge of world history, and true-blue love of our planet and every last inhabitant (including fire ants), for example. But that beauty is tempered with the frustration and challenge that accompanies trying to understand and correct things that are seen as deficiencies in the round-peg world. For Malcolm, writing does not come easily, math facts bounce around but rarely stick, test taking is akin to putting him in front of a firing squad, and social connection is never a guarantee. These are all formidable obstacles to fitting into that box of privilege that is the straight arrow path to some private schools. I’m pretty sure it’s not quite like this in the parenting world that is Italy. (Actually, I’m 100% sure, because our second born son has taken us on a predictable and perfectly-executed, nine-year-long guided tour of Italy, including jaunts into sunflower filled fields in the countryside and weeklong stays at formerly undiscovered beaches on the Mediterranean Sea.)

At the end of the day, more often than I wish were true, I must take a moment to remind myself that comparison is the thief of joy. Imagine a life without having ever explored Peru, without having experienced the heartfelt joy of discovering its existence. Peru was never meant to be compared to Italy. The color and culture of this journey is beautiful all on its own. We are lucky parents for having the opportunity to explore this wondrous world.

***** Eleven years of Malcolm *****

The Six Week Smile

When I brought Malcolm home from the hospital nearly eleven years ago, our beloved next door neighbor Randy looked deeply into his freshly minted eyes, the way you do across a candlelit table on a third date when you realize that you might be sitting across from the elusive one you didn’t know you were seeking. Randy’s was not an uneasy gaze, but more of an inquisitive meeting of souls. Randy, in his ethereal, woo woo, semi-omniscient manner said, “He’s an old soul, this one. Just wait, Stephanie: about six weeks in, when you’re ready to kill him because your entire life has been turned upside down, he’ll capture you with his smile and you’ll never be able to look back to that other life, the ‘before.'” Randy was right. I was not even remotely prepared for motherhood, and those six weeks were an unending (and upending), arduous, mostly self-defeating winter season with no apparent end in sight. And then, just as Randy promised, our first-born son smiled.

Zoe and I were out for a walk last night, and I as I inhaled the intoxicating scent of daphne blossoms, I audibly exhaled with the realization that spring had finally arrived, not quite in all her glory, but certainly approaching that zenith. I walk without headphones, but sometimes with my nose in a book I acquire along the way from one of the myriad little free libraries in my neighborhood. Last night was different. Zoe and I paid attention: she to wayward bunnies, me to the first blossoms of spring.

Clover is in full force around here, although you won’t find me looking for the four-leaf variety. The euphorbia with their brilliant yellow inflorescence stand tall, impossible to miss. There are the grape hyacinth, so aptly named that Malcolm as a three-year old wondered if he could eat them. It’s easy to miss the petite forget-me-nots peeking above mottled green leaves, doing their job as I am reminded of Amy’s wedding a zillion years ago. But my favorites are the magnolias: magnolia stellata are usually the first to bloom, but my heart will be singing some Taylor Swift tunes with the base turned all the way up when the big guns, the magnolia grandiflora, finally burst onto the scene. Right now, their blossoms are fuzzy little fists raised in indignation to perfect blue spring skies, bound tightly and waiting for their cue to join the chorus of blossoms.

The entrance of spring reminds me of those first six weeks of motherhood: the grey, dark dismal days with no light in sight. Just like Malcolm’s first smile, spring’s arrival caught me completely off guard, but has left me a different version of myself, this year. Seattle’s winter this year has truly been impossible. The promise of spring felt almost beyond reach in the deep snowmageddon months of winter, where school was cancelled day after day after day. Parenthood is like that too sometimes, with the ebb and flow of perfect moments interspersed with unanticipated darkness in the middle of the light. Every once in a while, I would welcome a good old-fashioned snow day where I’m excused from parenting.

Anyway, perhaps it goes without saying, but I’ll say it nonetheless: I’m so glad Mother Nature finally decided to smile this week.

*All photos are mine, taken with my iPhone. Please don’t borrow without permission!*

All That is Wild

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

~Henry David Thoreau

When Malcolm was born on a grey April day, my neighbor, upon first meeting him, remarked on the intensity of his gaze. “He is really wide awake, already; tuned in and alive to this world,” he said. Indeed, Malcolm seemed to drink up the world around him from that very first day: the spring leaves emerging from the birch and maple trees, the perennial flowers just coming into bloom, the slobbery greeting of each and every dog–he delighted in all of it as soon as he could smile.

As much as I would like to take credit, the reality is that he was born into this wildness, our boy. He craves nature, and finds solace and comfort in the great outdoors. In the face of disconcerting news, he storms out the front door and up into a tree. He rarely chooses my lap for comfort, unlike his little brother. He insists on walks in the Ravenna woods every day, often at the unreasonable hour of “past bedtime” and frankly, I sometimes feel as if we’ve done his soul a disservice, making our home here in the heart of Seattle.

This summer, Malcolm is quite possibly in his happiest of places. We are 92% unscheduled, mostly shying away from the camps that most city parents seem to find obligatory. Each day is a blank slate, and I never thought I’d be as happy as I am about that fact. (And yes, I get that this is a privilege of being a full-time mama.) We spend our days exploring beaches and forests, mountaintops and alpine lakes. We are cut from the same cloth, Malcolm and I, and neither one of us could possibly be any happier under the summer clouds (ahem, Seattle) this year.

Last week, after dropping the less-enthusiastic Oliver off at puppet camp (indoors, with plenty of crafting under dim artificial light), Malcolm and I set out for what I thought might be an overly ambitious hike: seven miles with nearly 1800 feet of elevation gain in the Cascade mountains. I’m not sure why I am surprised: that 56 pound boy, all eight years of him, hiked up that mountainside fueled only by a half a peanut butter sandwich and four cherries, without uttering one single complaint. Instead, he pointed out nurse logs, fed berries to our dog (“she needs to fuel up too!”), collected roughly ten pounds of rocks (the majority of which I discreetly unloaded in the parking lot), and delighted out loud, repeatedly, over the fact that he was such a “trooper” when it came to adventures in the woods. When we got to the ridge, where I figured we should turn around, he insisted that we descend to the lake so he could truly experience the beauty. I lie: in reality, he just wanted to see Zoe-dog dip into the icy waters, but still. He is a remarkable soul.

“Mommy, I could just stay here forever. Wouldn’t it be great if this was what school was like?” he suggested as we headed back home. I couldn’t agree more. John Muir once said that wildness is a necessity. I wish more humans understood this, but I’m really happy to be raising children who do.

Zoe+ alpine lake = retriever heaven.

*The obligatory selfie, in which Malcolm actually smiled.

(This fine photo of me was taken by the eight year old, who was instructed to take a photo of me and Zoe by the pond. Obviously, that worked out.)

Island Moments

Orcas Island: light reflecting on water at every turn, spring winds tousling small boy hair,  copious clouds and the occasional ray of gorgeous sunshine. Rocky beaches bestowing upon us a world of infinite treasures, if only we stop to notice them. We rise at 7am because the six year old is up, and watch the sun crest over the evergreens, the gorgeous Sound glittering in the morning light from our secret cabin in the woods. We would have missed this if we were still sleeping.

One thousand piece puzzles on a floating ferry boat, and one hundred eleven pages read of a weighty Pulitzer Prize winning novel; a five mile hike in the woods, which seems more ordinary than extraordinary this week. Beaches overflowing with gun sticks and sword sticks and cannon sticks and fishing sticks, all of which absolutely, positively, have to come home with us, mommy. (You should see his arsenal.) A hand-crafted teeter-totter, seventeen deer (including sweet spring fawns, more cautious than their mothers), and scoops of vanilla ice cream with a side of spring lilacs. Piecing together an impromptu eighth birthday celebration for our king of adventure and practicing downward dog with an eleven year old Golden on our last day, before burning off morning pancakes in a wide, open field.

Every day feels like Sunday, with a constant push to tune in to what matters in the here and now. A reminder that so often, the destination isn’t the point. It’s the letting go and the diving deep into a world where time matters not and imagination is king. These, they are the days that will not escape me.

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.” -Walt Whitman

Mommy Wars. And a hike.

I feel lucky and privileged to have these impromptu moments on a spring break Tuesday morning with my boys. My children are not a weighty burden, anymore than life itself might be considered an encumbrance. I chose them. I chose this path. Good grief, can we just give it up, these mommy wars? Can we stop saying to one another, “I don’t know how you do it…I could never be a stay-at-home mom!” or “How do you juggle work and family?” You just do; you just embrace, for better or worse, the path upon which you find yourself. You find the delights, endure the struggles, punch the time clock, be it at home with kids or in a seventy-two story office building with a gaggle of grown humans arguing over planned obsolescence.

And let’s be honest: some days are just lemons. While one boy flops to the floor in a teary, crumpled heap, the other hides under bedcovers nurturing a clandestine relationship with the iPad. The teenager of a puppy leaps onto our bed at 6am, despite knowing full well that she has her own rather divine tempurpedic on the floor. It’s all a rather rude awakening, working mom or not.

But I choose lemonade today. After a round of pancakes and maple syrup, we head north, not exactly sure where we will land, and find ourselves at a nearby beach park where the aforementioned crumpled heap again dramatically falls to the ground in an impressive car exiting maneuver. That is, until he spots a banana slug in the parking lot. His face lights up as he remembers this place, a place so wonderfully woodsy and downhill (for the first half, you silly boy) that even he can fathom undertaking the adventure. Zoe, well, she’s always all in: pulling ahead at the helm, ready to muddy herself up in any body of water we may encounter, no matter how miniscule.

Malcolm quickly gathered some sword sticks for our adventure, and cheered his brother up with a rather divine walking stick, which Zoe attempted to polish off before making itself into Oliver’s hands. The boys hopped and skipped and danced and sauntered their way down the hill to the beach at the bottom of the hill. We picnicked on the shores of the Salish Sea, the Olympic mountains to our west shrouded by gloomy clouds as far as the eye could see. We battled the strong winds with our sword sticks and with sand pelleting our eyes. We watched as crows devoured our banana, Zoe barked at the whitecaps, all the while taking cover in a driftwood fort serendipitously left for our discovery.

You see guys, lemonade. As we headed back up the hill, we found an ocean of dandelion seed heads, and the boys made the same secret wishes over and over again as they dispersed hundreds of seeds across the small meadow. My wish: though these moments be small and perhaps inconsequential, may my heart always remember them. May I always remember the intense joy of my boys in the woods (on the downhill portion, ahem, Oliver), and never forget to nurture that love.

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“If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, “The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.”
-David Sobel

 

Nature Boys

On a spring day when he was still tiny, perhaps two and a half years old, Malcolm ran through the Ravenna woods as he did every day since discovering his fourth gear. His hair was soft and flaxen, and I vividly remember it bouncing as he hopped over rotting logs and spring’s emergent horsetail buds. Oliver, asleep on my back, and Toulouse, pulling me along in hopes of taking the lead, trailed behind. The enormous Barred owl descended from the pines above, in near perfect silence, and I didn’t notice it until it had a hold of Malcolm’s hair in its talons. Unfazed, my boy skipped along in his own little world, and the owl released its grip.

That moment seared itself into my soul. To this day, it feels sacred and if spirit animals exist, a more perfect forest creature could not be a better choice for my son. Malcolm is my kindred spirit, my fellow introvert, my quiet observer, my gentle-hearted nature boy. He insists on walking to school, sticks in hand, ready to do battle with maple leaves and undeserving boulders. We walk together every night, and like his mama, he is oft so overcome by the beauty of Mother Nature that he just can’t keep it to himself. “Mommy, look at that fern! What is it called when it uncurls like that? It is just so beautiful.” Much of the time, he walks out in the lead with his battle sticks, inspecting new spring flowers and ancient Douglas firs. He has never, not even once, declared boredom when we are immersed in nature.

And so, with two long weeks of spring break stretching out before us, we packed ourselves into our family wagon yesterday and headed west to Bainbridge Island, home to Bloedel Reserve. We spent a couple of hours exploring the forest preserve. We saw, in no particular order, blue skies and sunshine, both mallards and wood ducks, birch trees and evergreens, an abandoned sheep barn and a stately mansion, flowers few and far between, fifty species of moss, and sword ferns unfurling everywhere. Oliver, who recently declared that his spirit animal would be “something high-tech, mommy,” was somehow as equally delighted by the mossy forest and sea of clover as he was by the prospect of blackberry ice cream cones at the end of our adventure.

Finding balance with our boys is never easy. We vacillate between loving our very urban life and craving the heart-song  inspired by nature every day. I suppose if one thing is true, we are most fortunate to live in the Pacific Northwest, where we get a little of both almost without trying.

(Hi mom!)

“Is it blackberry ice cream time yet, mommy?”

(Malcolm insisted I take this photo of the sword ferns coming into their own amidst horsetail.)

Acer macrophyllum, leaves and buds. So pretty.

“Oh, Montana, give this child a home.
Give him a love of a good family and a woman of his own.
Give him a fire in his heart, give him a light in his eyes.
Give him the wild wind for a brother and the wild Montana skies.” –John Denver

 

 

Our Little Fling with Spring

Toulouse was my standard excuse for convincing Oliver to walk home from school these past few months. “It’s a beautiful day, Oliver, and besides, Tousie really wanted to go on a walk.” Oliver would sigh and submit to the idea, dragging his tired preschool feet on that ever-long mile walk home. These past few days, I’ve been showing up at school without our dearest dog, and Oliver has been up in arms. “It isn’t even a beautiful day, mommy! Toulouse is dead. Why didn’t you just drive?” I hold back a tear or two–yes, Toulouse is dead, but it is still a beautiful day:  spring unfolding everywhere, the scent of daphne yet heavy in the air, cherry blossoms predictably exploding all across Seattle.

Our second born son is quite a natural little slug. He would rather snuggle on the couch than hike up Mt. Anywhere-But-Home. But he is also a nature lover and inquisitive little treasure hunter, and so quite often before we know it, he and I have arrived home from our walk, the small boy in possession of bits and pieces of sidewalk trash slyly stashed in back pockets. And so I convinced him today that we would go exploring on our way home. We took the “quiet way,” which is code for any path not leading down an arterial. It took us almost an hour to get home. I let him choose the way and didn’t stop him, even once, from picking up sketchy found objects and trinkets, including a smashed lighter, a broken rubber band, and five 3-leaf clovers. I let him traipse through yards (sorry neighbors) and chase down a flock of rice-eating pigeons. I embraced his idea of building a little green plant nest for the neighborhood birds, and encouraged him to choose bits and pieces along our journey with which he could implement his vision. In the end, we arrived home with pockets full of chlorophyll and glitter and one rusty screw–an odd collection of bird nest materials, that much is certain.

Grief takes many shapes. Healing, many forms. Our house is quiet(er) without Toulouse. It feels lonely without him standing underneath my legs as I write, constantly nudging me and rearranging his body such that I might pet him there, yes there, mama. But if feels good, privileged really, to be able to go on with the living: to run with my girlfriends around Green Lake, to celebrate all that is life as spring arrives, to look forward to welcoming (one day, soon, perhaps) a new sweet puppy into our lives. No matter how much we may resist the passage of time and the continuation of life, it happens. There’s nothing wrong with embracing it.

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My 74 Year Old Mom Bought a Party Boat

Suffice it to say, we all thought she had fallen off her proverbial rocker. But she’s not an ordinary 74 year-old grandma, and so it wasn’t a complete shock that my time-share owning, SUV-driving (insert daughter’s eye roll), mad-gardening-and-knitting skilled mama whimsically decided that she was going to buy a 22 foot long-boat. I fought it every step of the way (as any level-headed, fiscally conservative daughter is obliged to do), but there was nothing we could do to stop her from exchanging a hand written check for a floating key.

It took a few weeks to settle in, this news, and as well, a few weeks to get the boat detailed and renamed Serendipity (I mean, of course). My mom assured me that she studied dutifully during those two weeks, passing some sort of online boating test just so she’d know the ins and outs of starboard and port and all that jazz. I’m sure that she figured the online course would teach her to throw the boat in reverse and do water donuts, but as we learned rather quickly, that’s a skill gained only through practice.

We journeyed out a week ago for Serendipity’s maiden voyage, my mom at the helm, Dave seated comfortably far from the driver/panic zone, the boys anxiously awaiting their turn behind the wheel. Dave and I proceeded to bark orders at my mom with the hope that she wouldn’t crash into anything too soon or too fast. After all, as we were reminded multiple times by the former owner, this baby is the prettiest boat on the lake and it would be a real bummer to crack the hull on our first voyage. (You guys, it’s basically a water taxi. I mean, “pretty” might be stretching it a bit.) Somehow, we got out of the dock without crashing into the adjacent $649K yacht, but oh my, that tiny little wake left by this electric boat had me biting my nails and sweating bullets.

The small boys bickered over who would man the helm and my mom broke out the champagne and low sodium Ritz crackers. I scanned the waters for errant kayaks and yachts, hoping their paddle skills were madder than our boating skills. (God spare you, poor souls…) Anyway, there’s no end to this story, because we took the party boat out again today, the boys and grandma and I. We managed to navigate around Lake Union and for the first time in my life, I helped dock a boat. It’s really hard. I know it’s not supposed to be, but my feet were meant for running and/or tripping over small objects, and so I’m pretty confident that on one of these little outings, I’m going to make a jump for the dock and find myself bobbing in the chilly waters of Lake Union. Because that’s how I roll.

Without further ado, here are some snaps from our maiden voyage(s). I feel like we have many a maiden voyage to take before we actually earn our captain’s hats. Ahoy, mateys.

And here she is, the woman behind all this boating madness. Thanks for the good times, mama! We love you.

In Pursuit of Shiny-Happy.

The promise was an afternoon together at the MOHAI. Oliver wanted to show Malcolm some secret crystals he’d recently discovered on a preschool field trip, he declared on Monday. Certainly the Museum of History and Industry is rife with rare and treasured shiny objects, right? Or not, but I was game on this cloudy afternoon with nothing else to do besides sit on the back porch, freezing, staring into the grey. I’m still really angry with that groundhog…

So, as it turns out, what ensued was “all my fault,” according to the boys. Oliver accused me of wastin’ time talkin’ to the other first grade moms for too many hours (actually minutes, yes, but still). We did the opposite of race home, and arrived back at the house exactly one hour before the museum was to close. We hopped into the car with shocking swiftness, two stuffed bunnies and a lunch box of snacks stuffed between carseats for the long, two mile drive to South Lake Union. (Malcolm insisted on the road snacks.) And alas, those small boys were right: traffic was as ominous as the skies, and sure as can be, we arrived 15 minutes shy of closing time.

“Lemonade time, small men!” I declared, refusing to throw in the towel. And so, as luck would have it, we bumped into another boy at the little pond who had in his possession every small boy’s dream: a remote controlled battleship. On top of that, he was a kind and generous child who immediately offered to share. (No, I’m not kidding. These kids do exist.) The lemons were forgotten, and all we could do was drink in the sweet honey of a beautiful afternoon spent captaining a boat and exploring the lakeside docks. It was only an hour or so, but the change in scenery is good for a mama’s soul, and I’m grateful for the botched mission. Those crystals, they can wait.

Seatown Winter Blues

We have the blues. We are mired in February and it’s been raining for days. Months, even. I can’t remember the last ray of sunshine I inhaled. We are doing our best to make rainbows. We’ve been on a lot of worm hunts, visiting “worm town” regularly, where at last count there were 36 drowning worms in at least as many puddles. The grey is heavy on our hearts, my own heart most specifically. The boys don’t much seem to notice. Even Toulouse our dog has the blues. But today, today gave us a tiny glimpse of what is to come: spring. And goodness, we cannot wait. I’m inhaling the gorgeous fragrance of the first flowers of the daphne, planted all over my yard in the last couple of years to remind me, midwinter, of the promise of spring. Each year I should memorize this into my heart: seasons are not eternal and blues can be undone.

Those big eyes of his. How can we not go  bask in the mud with him?

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

–e.e. cummings