Little White High-Top Shoes

In the Ted Kooser column in the Sunday paper was an insightful verse on Parenting.  Kooser,  a Nebraskan, was the U.S. poet laureate from 2004-2006.  He included a poem about parenthood, and about letting go of children, by Chana Bloch, who lives in Berkeley, CA.

Through a Glass


On the crown of his head
where the fontanelle pulsed
between spongy bones,
a bald spot is forming, globed and sleek 
as a monk's tonsure.


I was the earliest pinch of civilization,
the one who laced him 
into shoe leather
when he stumbled into walking upright.
"Shoes are unfair to children," he'd 
grouse


Through a pane of glass
that shivers when the wind kicks up
I watch my son walk away.


He's out the door, up the street,
around
a couple of corners by now.
I'm in for life.
He trips; my hand flies out;


I yank it back.

Face to Face on Facebook

Starting a day with a good laugh is invigorating.  I found this on a 3rd cousin's Facebook page.  Maybe she is a first cousin three times removed.

Familial genetics are such a mystery.  I had babies that looked so similar that I could have taken this one home by mistake.

Excellent photo perhaps by a parent of this baby.

Magical

I have waited nearly all summer for "House."  The plan was to watch it from seven to eight and then go sauna and swim.  The program turned out like all the others.  Way too much intimacy for us, be it a hallucination or not.  The off button is an easy out.

After 10 or 15 minutes of 130 degree steam heat, just the thought of the pool was inviting.  The warm pool seemed cool enough and getting used to 88 degrees was a very quick adjustment.  If that were not enough, the moon was full and in the city lights only a couple of stars, or more likely planets, were visible.  No amount of planning could have made the evening more delightful.

Sauna

Perhaps I have come full circle.  My childhood was filled with visits to neighborhood sauna nights.  This summer He Who Must Be Obeyed has worked on making a sauna off of our back porch.  The Sauna stove with rocks has a Finnish name and works wonderfully.  We have sauna-ed three times now and plan another sauna this evening; to be cooled off in the heated pool.  I don't think that is even fair.  The childhood sauna never had the cold lake nor the snowbank cool-off.  It was completed with a steamy toweling off and getting dressed with all the neighborhood women talking in Finnish.  They could talk breathing in and breathing out.  It made for a lovely lullaby for a child who slept on the way home to my grandparent's sheep ranch.

My mother and I met relatives in Finland in the sauna.  Their summer cabin was on an island with a sauna connected to their boat launch.  The wooden floating dock must have been 70 feet to the end.  After a session in the steam, we all walked to the end of the bouncing dock for a dive into the cold Finland lake...about three times.    It was a no clothes, no towel, no swim suit event.  All women, grandma, mother, daughter, sister, wife, and small child welcoming the visitors from America with a sauna, we got new birch switches, we were scrubbed, rinsed, and given siima, a strange delicious mildly fermented lemon and raisin drink and finally taken to the cabin to the coffee table to meet the men.  How could one not feel like family!

My life has been full of these "Marcus Borg" thin places.  Those holy places where God is so close you can smell his presence.

Yard, Jungle, or What?

Sometimes it is hard to tell.

Is it a weed?  Is it a flower?

Whatever, it is a joy.

Cricket Cage

When the job moved us to Omaha in 1968 or 69, one of our little sons made a cricket cage and brought a Black Hills cricket with us in the car.  Both the cage and the singing cricket were really quite charming.  I don't know how we made it with no AC, five children, a big German Shepherd, and the cricket of course.

A few years ago I found a wire screened and plastic bug cage at a garage sale for my visiting grandchildren.  For a few summers it was filled with fire-flies but now as the grandchildren grew out of the bug stage, their grandmother has gone back into it.  The last time I was alone a few days a Praying Mantis found its way into the house and I put a door stop on it and waited until He Who Must Be Obeyed came home to save me from its prying eyes and long reaching front legs.

Last night a very loud cricket with an operatic voice sang in the living-room.  I thought I let it outside but no, as soon as I got back in bed, it began its loud song again, for a mate, I suppose.  If it tries to sing me to sleep tonight I am going to cage it and let it sing its heart out.  My only fear is that I will break its legs in my desperate attempt to get it in my cricket cage.

All of this does not sound very dignified for a grandmother.

A Bird in the Hand

Not only did I have a bird in my hand, I had it in a bug cage while it recovered from hitting our glass storm door.  I found the little yellow bellied wren on its back on the cement with a menacing cardinal watching it from atop the bird feeder.  I should have taken a photo of it.  It was so beautiful and small.  I gave it a few minutes to recover and freed it in the back yard.  It is a rare opportunity to have a bird in the hand.

As long as I can recall, I have had an affinity for a furry or feathered bundle with a beating heart.  Our morning started out with this pink nosed and toed pear eater.  After I got a picture of him, he went off to the humane society to be released a thousand feet/yards from his capture address.  It sounds like a revolving door to me, but maybe he will avoid this unpleasant experience.  I can't say I much liked his looks, but the flies did.

 Mouth open and showing teeth, it drooled.  So very unpleasant and unappealing.