Another Note

Stage mother still slumbers (see yesterday)

Here's today's dip into eternity, courtesy of Joyce Sutphen, Coming Back to the Body.

Gifts

That woman, she said, could rattle a birdrght out of the sky; that man

could spell a row of corn backwards

and forwards. Their children (all ten of them)

could tell you how to add leaf ot branch

or divide the sky cloud by cloud.

They were a talented family,

a most gifted group.

And when they wanted a vacation,

they painted a wall full of mountains

and climbed the highest ones,

they carved a coastline along the sidewalk

so that they could gaze out to sea

beyond the garage’s shore.

They could sing harmony to a song

that was only, just then, being composed.

They believed in things that no one –not

even God—would have asked them to believe.

They knew how to keep stars

shining and they still do.

~*~*~

And you?

The Exhausted Late Night Nod to the Blog

The Matron is spent.

It is just 10 pm but her brain wattage is experimenting with senility.

Tired.

Stage Mother has been waiting in the wings! Down, Gypsy Lee! But the Matron must wait for tomorrow to capture those complexities. Right now, her brain is about as functional as a pineapple.

Which brings her to this blog post. Remember the older child, lobbying to change his name?

Yesterday, he went to a friend's 13 birthday party and brought a gift that he has identified as his signature-- a birthday calling card of sorts. He carefully wrapped up a $10 bill and put it in a baggie. Then he cut a hole in a pineapple, inserted the $10 in the center of the fruit, and plugged up the hole with the pineapple peel.

Thinking this not sufficiently distinctive, he took said pineapple outside and spray-painted it purple.

His plan is to present pineapples to all his friends turning 13 this year with a card that says: "Enjoy." And say no more.

And the Matron wonders why she has troubles with Direct Communication?

Sunday, Meditation

Yesterday, the Matron practiced Loving Kindness. This is the Buddhist tradition of approaching every moment – each cell! every hearbeat! each glance! – with loving kindness. You know what those words mean.

She was interrupted five times during breakfast with this:

“Mom! Can you get me some milk?”

“Where is the syrup?”

“I dropped my napkin and I can’t find it!”

“Are there raspberries in the fridge?

Each time, she got up and answered the call. She didn’t roll her eyes or snap someone else to attention. She left her own cereal untouched.

She let cars merge.

She put down the toilet seat.

She wiped off the spit stains from the bathroom mirror.

She did not look in the full-length mirror with a critical eye.

She administered band-aids.

She answered the phone and said: yes.

She spent much time sitting with her children, listening without judgment.

She washed her hair well and added rose water to the rinse, enjoying.

She gave the last piece of grilled salmon to her husband.

She listened patiently to the telemarketer’s spiel before declining.

She asked her mother for all possible stories about the dog and cats and tried her best to truly listen.

She pitted yesterday's sweet and satisfying experiment against the frenzy of a normal day and realized how most of the time she says: No.

The Matron is Famous

Cough, cough.

Thanks to Cheri for nominating this post to be featured on Five Star Friday. If only the Matron did not have to LIVE THROUGH that post several times a day.

Head on over to Five Star Friday and sing the Matronly praises!

The Boy in the Body

No.

Merrick still cannot read.

The Matron has chewed on this cud before.

Around the house, her joke has been "Merrick can't read but he can slide down the stairs in his footie pajamas." She should really film that. On his belly, a straight shot down some pretty steep (carpeted) stairs. Hy-ster-i-cal!

Yesterday, the Matron had this heady intellectual exchange with her son, who had spent the morning playing with a stick. You know, the kind that fall off trees.

Matron: "Merrick, would you like a friend to come over and do something really fun, like going to the playground or ice cream shop?"

Merrick: "No thank you. I'm playing with my stick."

And he did. For hours to the tune of the Matron's lament: "He can't read but he's playing with a stick."

You see, the Matron would want young Merrick to be arranging his sticks into some kind of algebraic equation or roman numeral outline for the novel he might be intuiting. But the Matron has recently come to understand just how fully BODY is her boy.

History Lesson 101

Merrick is 3 and Uncle Norm--father to two accomplished athletes-- visits and throws Merrick a ball. Half an hour of drills later, Norm says: "You should pick a sport and hire a personal trainer. This is like raw genius, that boy."

Merrick is 3 and takes like a fish to water. Swimming instructor: "You should really get him involved in a team or something. He's just good in the water."

Merrick is 4 and takes to T-Ball. Only he never needs the T and the coaches pitch to him. Coach: "You should really start training him as a pitcher. Set up a target and let him start hitting."

Merrick is 5 and shoots hoops with a neighbor. Neighbor: "Where is Merrick learning to shoot hoops? Is there a team or training? That kid can dribble."

Merrick is 6 and plays hockey in a Kindergarten League. Hockey Instructor: "Merrick basically put on those skate and pelted out there to score. You must've taught him to skate before, right? At least he's been practicing with a puck?"

Merrick is 6 and takes tennis lessons. Teacher: "I have never seen hand-eye coordination like that in 25 years of teaching. Tennis and golf. Get him swinging."

History Lesson, Complete

The Matron? Slow learner.

Thanks to a friend's wise counsel, the Matron finally fully appreciates how Merrick's gifts (and brains!) are in his body. It only took her three years to see this because she is of the sort who strikes out right before falling off the balance beam and hitting herself on the face with the tennis racket.

Not only did she assume that her offspring would follow in her disembodied direction, so unaccostumed to the realm of All Things Athletic is she, that she honestly did quite know this Realm for the Athlete existed until -- oh, about two days ago.

This is where her youngest child lives.

She needs to learn its rules--the way the athletically inclined think, read, play, compete, grow, etc. She plans to toss her child in and let him go. She'll follow in whatever sport he lands (if he even picks one or two or twenty).

At the wildly enthusiastic invitation of his tennis instructor, Merrick plays in his first competition next Saturday. He picked up a racket for the first time in June.

The prodigy is currently occupied and unable to entertain guests or questions. He is busy with a rock and a big pile of dirt (thankfully outside with Satan's Familiar). That should take him straight through Friday.

Control Freaks (Plural is Important)

The following exists in Full Throttle, Michael Jackson Memorial Volume. And happened today.

The Matron is in the kitchen. Scarlett in the basement. Merrick on the second floor. Stryker on the third floor in the family room.

The phone rings.

The Matron can see from the caller ID that this is John calling from work. She can also clearly see when Stryker picks up the phone from the third floor handset.

Still - knowing full well that Styrker is on the line -- she answers anyway: "John? What's up?"

John: "Oh. I'm calling with a question for Stryker and he's on the line."

Matron: "What? What do you want to know?"

Stryker: "MOM. It's fine. Hang up."

From the basement -- "MOM WHO IS ON THE PHONE!????" This would be Scarlett.

The Matron screams into the general air.

Matron: "Daddy."

Scarlett: "What does he want? Why is he calling?"

Matron: "I don't know, ask Stryker."

Merrick (from his second floor bedroom): "WHY IS DADDY ON THE PHONE?"

Scarlett: "Mom! Ask Dad what's going on!"

Stryker: "Can everybody shut up so I can talk to Dad?"

Matron on the phone: "Really, why do you need to talk to Stryker?"

Merrick: "Why is nobody talking to ME. Whewe is Daddy?"

Scarlett: "MOM? Is that Dad on the phone? Can I talk to him? I'VE GOT IT."

Stryker: "I'm on the phone!"

Scarlett picks up from the basement. "Dad? Why are you calling Stryker?"

Merrick screams from upstairs: "I want to be on the phone too?"

Matron: "Why are you calling? I mean really, what's going on?"

Merrick picks up from the Matron's office: "Dad? Stwyker? Talk to me!"

Dial Tone.

Matron: "Kids? I think Dad hung up."

Scarlett: "WHY WOULD HE HANG UP?"

Stryker: "CALL HIM BACK AND ASK WHY HE'D HANG UP."

Merrick: Sob.

Those litle apples? Are not falling far from from the Managerial Tree.

Survived, Sustained

The Matron is pleased to report that she survived the briefest of forays into the wilds of Wisconsin. Wilds? Okay, the lake in which she dipped her toe is part of a sprawling collection populated by one cabin after another. She was exactly six minutes from espresso and a store (which is why she survived it).

Still, nothing suits an urban girl more than a return to the city. Just to see that cityscape, with all its promise ahead!

As part of reorientation, the Matron immediately locked herself in her bedroom and prepared for a return to full-time work and parenting by reading Sylvia Plath.

Here's where you think: "what? the mother who stuck her head in the oven?"

But she didn't kill her chlidren and that's more or less a Matronly goal, too.

The Matron's spirit is always buoyed and sustained by Plath because of language -- words, beautiful staggering sorrowful, words. Nobody can sling 'em like Sylvia.

Here's one of her favorite poems b Sylvia Plath. Nearly every line gives her chills.

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue,

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night long your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ears.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.