Timeliness plays a crucial role in the success of the process.Choose one of the busiest times of year. Christmas would work, but for me, the end of May is best. The collective focus is to push through the frenetic burst of the fireworks'-like finale of the end of the school year (a spectacle of recitals and graduations, play offs and tournaments), reaching, striving for the first refreshing days of summer to arrive. This time of year will tie up your time as well as any availability of friends and family. Also, it is good to have your husband close to a thousand miles away so that he can not interfere in the carefully planned process.
First, procrastinate the act of physically packing by spending an inordinate amount of time in intense planning. Carry around little notepads and steal your kids' pencils and pens to make to-do lists and packing lists and itemized furniture lists and lists of your wall hangings. Make lists of your most precious possessions and lists of things you could do without. Do not include anything living or breathing; just objects that take up space.
Once you have exhausted all possible topics start categorizing your lists. Divide your list of wall hangings into groups like photographs, posters and paintings. Break the to-do lists into feasible parts by time: "do today", "do tomorrow", "do before the move". Or divide them into specifics. "Pack Rem's room," can be subdivided into, "pack Rem's toys", "pack Rem's books", and "pack Rem's clothes". If needed, these, too, can be further deconstructed ('pack train set", "pack blocks", "pack Lego's", etc.).
If you run out of paper (don't buy anything new during the moving process) start scribbling your lists on the back of envelopes from the mail or on the back of your daughters' progress reports. Pull random store receipts from your wallet that for some reason you saved and, using a blue or red pen for clarity, compose lists alongside the long forgotten but necessary purchases. Lists enable you to feel really proactive while expending very little effort.
Second, be prepared. Scatter stacks of different sized boxes in various places around the house. Do the same with packing tape and sharpie markers, but not in the same spots as the other packing materials so that wherever you are you can happen upon something that you might need. I found a need for packing tape, painters tape and duct tape so have all of them on hand. Buy a surplus of bubble wrap because you will lose at least a fourth of it to little fingers (and not so little ones). They will hide little stashes of the stuff and pop them in uncontrollable fits periodically throughout the day and into the night. Carefully determine how many boxes you will need for the entire packing process and then double it. You will need that number of boxes every two days.
Third, visualize. Imagine that you have lived the last fifteen years in an amazingly organized fashion. Picture the basement filled with neatly stacked and labeled boxes of baby clothes, school keepsakes, holiday decorations and camping gear. Create in your mind's eye kitchen cabinets filled with neatly nested plastic containers all with matching lids and small appliances sitting in rows with all of their parts (a missing rubber gasket between the blade and glass body renders a blender useless - trust me). Find a nice, quiet time to go down into the basement to survey what is actually there. Return up the stairs and turn off the light. Have a glass of wine or a bowl of ice cream. Allow the monumental reality of the task ahead to sink in slowly. This may take a few days. During this period of adjustment force yourself to peer into foreign territory. Survey the cabinets in the kids' bathroom. Open their closet doors and dig around a little. Spend some time shuffling through the file drawers in the studio. Accept the fact that you did not live in a manner that facilitated moving in any way.
Third, learn to love the word "trash". Pitch! Pitch! Pitch! If your husband bears a genetic tendency toward hoarding it is best to have him out of the house. If you are packing your house within a two week time frame it is nice if he is already living in another city. Some things just work out. Maybe he won't remember that he owns fifteen pocket knives (and the last time you saw him use one was a backpacking trip pre-kids). Throw away ten. Remember that your children have the same potential and choose school days to secretly throw out half of their belongings before even looking at what they are.
Did you keep every drawing of your first born but only one or two artistic endeavors of your other children? Now is the time to even the playing field. Ditch all of those carefully preserved creations of your first child. Save one or two and allow all of your children to feel equally neglected later on down the road.
Do you know the zip-loc bag of teeth hidden deep in your pantie drawer, that special place where the tooth fairy lovingly placed all of those offerings from under the pillows of those beautifully sleeping children full of love and belief and magic? Throw the bag away. No one wants their baby teeth and if they did you've already ruined it by mixing every one's teeth together. Throw it away.
Toys, books, odd and ends (such as alumni drink cozies) trapped behind beds, dressers, bookshelves and sofas all go into that big green bin that's moved to the curb on trash day. If no one complained for the last three months about the missing hair bands, rubber balls, ancient beanie babies and various sundries discovered upon moving the furniture then no one will miss them once they're in the garbage. Have no mercy.
Finally, never reveal that last tip that will give the upper hand in completing the packing process. This is something that everyone must figure for themselves. Or let that super hero of a husband fly in at the last minute and figure it out for you. That's what I'm going to do.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Marathon Games - A Nice Way to Say Good-bye to Highland Football Club
The kids gear up for one last time in HFC red.
Rem's waiting for a chance to get in the game!
Rem takes a turn with the camera.
Miren hates to say good-bye!Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Tax Time
I know nothing of advertising strategies. My age and marital status eliminate me from most targeted markets that require innovative ad solutions. I am awkward as a girl without a partner at a school dance as I try to find the appeal of television commercials that tend to send Craig into fits of laughter. On the whole, our family tends to purchase outside of the conventional box with the exception of Rem’s sudden desire for a pillow pet during the holidays. Luckily, the desire disappeared before I caved in and he returned to more Rem-like material wishes. Just yesterday he asked me if he could have a parrot. The parrot, he suggested, could live in the rim of the pirate hat (revolutionary hat, actually) his father just sent him. I told him I’d think about it. Lise as a consumer is solely functional-minded with occasional spending spurts of spontaneous excess whose origins remain a mystery to all. Miren prides herself on her unique fashion sense based on setting herself apart from the masses and a frugality that prohibits spending money for words printed across t-shirts “hiding the great colors” beneath advertising that young people pay to provide.
Now that I have established myself as the antithesis of expert in the realm of advertising, a trait that stretches beyond the individual into my familial circle, I dare to tread into the waters of marketing. Miren counseled me to stay away from ranting about issues, especially ones where I acknowledge ignorance on the subject matter. I almost relented to her wisdom until yesterday as I sat at the red light after leaving Lise’s school and stared in disbelief at the woman on the corner. I speak of the advertising campaign of the franchised tax businesses that require employees to humiliate themselves in cheap statue of liberty costumes on the busy streets in front of the businesses. The awful blue-green that drapes only to mid-calf on most people looks as though a stock boy from Kmart discovered an unopened box of costumes from the early eighties and passed them along. The foam crown’s lack of rigidity leads to collapse on one side or another and forces poor posture upon the unfortunate Lady Liberty imposter.
The cast of posers change and the kids and I speculate as to whether the debased employee serves a work-related punishment for a tax-related mistake or, more likely, for failure to meet client quotas. Undaunted by the public disgrace, the liberty characters dance wildly on the corner, pausing only to wave obnoxiously to the passers-by. Men and women alike gyrate within a small square of sidewalk to street-noise for there is no music playing anywhere. I can only avert my eyes and concentrate on the light cycle of the swaying street light above me.
This foray into employee humiliation is not a new advertising strategy. I have passed cartooned Caesars boasting hot, $5 pizzas and waving ice-cream cones beckoning people into strip malls where apparent gigantic servings of ice-cream are offered. Mistakenly, I assumed children were the target audience of such displays. Are hardworking, taxpaying citizens enticed by bad costumes and frantic gestures? My naiveté presented itself again in the assumption that the particular tax preparer on Merrimon had drummed up the bizarre tactic for boosting business. Apparently, the use of the unstable looking Lady Liberties in cheap costumes is widespread. I now avoid Patton Avenue when driving (at least until April 15th).
Now I return to yesterday. Driving down Merrimon near the intersection, I glanced sideways in hopes that all involved came to their senses and stopped the ridiculous displays. Not to be. Lady Liberty stood in her usual spot but this time a large stuffed white bear sat in her arms also bearing a limp, foam crown. The woman held the paw of the stuffed animal and waved it toward the passing cars. Who would entrust such a person with sifting through the year’s finances to determine tax responsibilities? What am I missing? Could someone provide me with the statistics that establish the success of such advertising? I would like to drive again with my eyes wide open.
Now that I have established myself as the antithesis of expert in the realm of advertising, a trait that stretches beyond the individual into my familial circle, I dare to tread into the waters of marketing. Miren counseled me to stay away from ranting about issues, especially ones where I acknowledge ignorance on the subject matter. I almost relented to her wisdom until yesterday as I sat at the red light after leaving Lise’s school and stared in disbelief at the woman on the corner. I speak of the advertising campaign of the franchised tax businesses that require employees to humiliate themselves in cheap statue of liberty costumes on the busy streets in front of the businesses. The awful blue-green that drapes only to mid-calf on most people looks as though a stock boy from Kmart discovered an unopened box of costumes from the early eighties and passed them along. The foam crown’s lack of rigidity leads to collapse on one side or another and forces poor posture upon the unfortunate Lady Liberty imposter.
The cast of posers change and the kids and I speculate as to whether the debased employee serves a work-related punishment for a tax-related mistake or, more likely, for failure to meet client quotas. Undaunted by the public disgrace, the liberty characters dance wildly on the corner, pausing only to wave obnoxiously to the passers-by. Men and women alike gyrate within a small square of sidewalk to street-noise for there is no music playing anywhere. I can only avert my eyes and concentrate on the light cycle of the swaying street light above me.
This foray into employee humiliation is not a new advertising strategy. I have passed cartooned Caesars boasting hot, $5 pizzas and waving ice-cream cones beckoning people into strip malls where apparent gigantic servings of ice-cream are offered. Mistakenly, I assumed children were the target audience of such displays. Are hardworking, taxpaying citizens enticed by bad costumes and frantic gestures? My naiveté presented itself again in the assumption that the particular tax preparer on Merrimon had drummed up the bizarre tactic for boosting business. Apparently, the use of the unstable looking Lady Liberties in cheap costumes is widespread. I now avoid Patton Avenue when driving (at least until April 15th).
Now I return to yesterday. Driving down Merrimon near the intersection, I glanced sideways in hopes that all involved came to their senses and stopped the ridiculous displays. Not to be. Lady Liberty stood in her usual spot but this time a large stuffed white bear sat in her arms also bearing a limp, foam crown. The woman held the paw of the stuffed animal and waved it toward the passing cars. Who would entrust such a person with sifting through the year’s finances to determine tax responsibilities? What am I missing? Could someone provide me with the statistics that establish the success of such advertising? I would like to drive again with my eyes wide open.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Fonder Hearts
My grandmother, sitting at the oak table near the stove in her kitchen told me stories about her younger life. These were not in depth narratives. In keeping with her reserved and secretive nature Grandmama threw out interesting tidbits from here and there, randomly selected or remembered. By the time I was old enough to spend hours with her in the kitchen, accepting the sugar bowl she pushed my way to help make the twice-percolated chicory coffee palatable, the house had already become an impenetrable fortress from the world. Windows that my grandfather nailed shut to the framing sat hidden behind layers of blinds, sheers and heavy, lined curtains. Locked storm doors stood behind locked and chained inner doors. A wooden gate divided the driveway and marked the only opening in the tall privacy fence that surrounded the back and side yards that formed a blockade against a quiet, friendly neighborhood that never experienced a down turn.
“I hated when your grandpappy worked the night shift,” she reminisced. “I pushed a chair to the back door and sat through the night with Eldon, a little baby then, sleeping on my lap. I was so happy to hear those heavy footsteps on the back stoop when your grandpappy returned home.”
She heaved herself out of the wooden chair and clamored across the kitchen floor in her black pumps and opened one of the heavy-lacquered cabinet drawers. A row of Grandpappy’s Creole tomatoes lined the green-tiled counter top. She walked to the stove with a big serving spoon, lifted one of the pot lids and stirred. The scent of her brown gravy escaped the pot and settled into the kitchen. Later, she’d add the meatballs that sat under a dishtowel on a plate in the refrigerator. “Do you know that the first time he worked at night I couldn’t stay in the house? I tried. But I just couldn’t do it and so I took the baby and caught the very last bus to my parents’ house.”
I laughed at the contradictory nature of her behavior.
She sat back down at the table and watched me pour more Pet milk into my coffee. The café au lait at home looked a creamy gray in our cups but this looked like a roux. Her fingers, thin and bony, her knuckles full of arthritis that prevented her from removing the thin gold band on her left hand, traced imaginary lines in the green tablecloth. “Grandpappy took a job in Youngstown, Ohio. Your mama was a baby.”
I sipped the coffee from a spoon, un-dissolved sugar melting on my tongue. “I guess you couldn’t sit by the door then,” I smiled, trying to imagine my grandfather north of New Orleans.
“No,” Grandmama agreed. “My cousin’s son Roy came to stay with me and help out while Grandpappy was gone.” I didn’t know Roy. By that time Grandmama had lost touch with most of the people from her past. She provided no other details.
“Did I tell you about when I was struck by lightning?” she asked, like she was flipping through the pages of a memory book and reading only the captions.
“Tell me,” I encouraged, my legs swinging under the table as if we had a lifetime to fill in the details.
Among my grandparents’ things, my mother found letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother during his time in Ohio. Among them were cards to my mom and her brother. Most intriguing to me was the way he closed the handwritten letters to my grandmother. “Your lover,” he wrote before signing his name with the familiar rounded, generous curves of his “E”.
Dad periodically travelled for work for continuing education courses or meteorological seminars and in the early days of those travels returned from various US cities, sometimes obscure ones, with treasured trinkets for each of us. He brought my sister Kerri a beautiful book of Russian fairy tales after a trip and gave me a favorite doll that wore a plaid skirt and a red ribbon tied in her hair. We could set up the National Mall in miniature on the den floor with the souvenir monuments Dad brought from Washington DC. Later on we were happy with the soaps and moisturizers he brought us from the hotels. I remember his return home from these trips more than his absence due, no doubt, to Mom's highly organized and efficient running of the household.
Each summer Dad went away to summer camp as part of his service in the National Guard. Pulled from sleep early for a July day, I found my way down the stairs where Dad and his friend, Nick Adams, stood in the breakfast room. Both men wore BDUs, their deep male voices filling the room where they stood drinking coffee but already in the place they were going and it sounded foreign to me. Mom encouraged us to say good-bye quickly so that the men could get on the road and we did, most of us returning up the stairs for more sleep. The air-conditioning, blowing cool, dry air over our bodies drowned out the sound of the car pulling away.
The garden seemed always at its peak when Dad went to summer camp, my brothers expected to harvest the tomatoes, green beans, okra and cucumbers that weighed heavily and plentiful on the hilly rows. Occasionally, I was called upon to weed, stepping bare feet into the hardened footprints of my father in the dirt between the rows as my fingers searched for unwanted grass and weeds below the fruitful plants. My brothers, perhaps from too much rain or busy summer schedules, often neglected the garden and remembered their duty only as my father’s return approached. Major food wars with overripe vegetables took place in and around the garden and even into the far reaches of the yard before the boys offered my mother a disappointing harvest. Everyone appeared baffled at the lack of bounty. My mother, after all, hadn’t had much opportunity to keep after the boys because she spent my Dad’s absence dealing with various household calamities particular to each summer. Perhaps it was the washing machine that spewed water everywhere before refusing to work or the van suddenly riding about town in a plume of smoke.
The days after Craig’s departure to Boston can now be tallied in weeks. The house isn’t any quieter. Sometimes I find I’m not even alone at night as Rem’s rotation of musical beds now includes mine. The most difficult part of Craig’s absence is that I sit here in Asheville, indefinitely, while my life is somewhere else.
“I hated when your grandpappy worked the night shift,” she reminisced. “I pushed a chair to the back door and sat through the night with Eldon, a little baby then, sleeping on my lap. I was so happy to hear those heavy footsteps on the back stoop when your grandpappy returned home.”
She heaved herself out of the wooden chair and clamored across the kitchen floor in her black pumps and opened one of the heavy-lacquered cabinet drawers. A row of Grandpappy’s Creole tomatoes lined the green-tiled counter top. She walked to the stove with a big serving spoon, lifted one of the pot lids and stirred. The scent of her brown gravy escaped the pot and settled into the kitchen. Later, she’d add the meatballs that sat under a dishtowel on a plate in the refrigerator. “Do you know that the first time he worked at night I couldn’t stay in the house? I tried. But I just couldn’t do it and so I took the baby and caught the very last bus to my parents’ house.”
I laughed at the contradictory nature of her behavior.
She sat back down at the table and watched me pour more Pet milk into my coffee. The café au lait at home looked a creamy gray in our cups but this looked like a roux. Her fingers, thin and bony, her knuckles full of arthritis that prevented her from removing the thin gold band on her left hand, traced imaginary lines in the green tablecloth. “Grandpappy took a job in Youngstown, Ohio. Your mama was a baby.”
I sipped the coffee from a spoon, un-dissolved sugar melting on my tongue. “I guess you couldn’t sit by the door then,” I smiled, trying to imagine my grandfather north of New Orleans.
“No,” Grandmama agreed. “My cousin’s son Roy came to stay with me and help out while Grandpappy was gone.” I didn’t know Roy. By that time Grandmama had lost touch with most of the people from her past. She provided no other details.
“Did I tell you about when I was struck by lightning?” she asked, like she was flipping through the pages of a memory book and reading only the captions.
“Tell me,” I encouraged, my legs swinging under the table as if we had a lifetime to fill in the details.
Among my grandparents’ things, my mother found letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother during his time in Ohio. Among them were cards to my mom and her brother. Most intriguing to me was the way he closed the handwritten letters to my grandmother. “Your lover,” he wrote before signing his name with the familiar rounded, generous curves of his “E”.
Dad periodically travelled for work for continuing education courses or meteorological seminars and in the early days of those travels returned from various US cities, sometimes obscure ones, with treasured trinkets for each of us. He brought my sister Kerri a beautiful book of Russian fairy tales after a trip and gave me a favorite doll that wore a plaid skirt and a red ribbon tied in her hair. We could set up the National Mall in miniature on the den floor with the souvenir monuments Dad brought from Washington DC. Later on we were happy with the soaps and moisturizers he brought us from the hotels. I remember his return home from these trips more than his absence due, no doubt, to Mom's highly organized and efficient running of the household.
Each summer Dad went away to summer camp as part of his service in the National Guard. Pulled from sleep early for a July day, I found my way down the stairs where Dad and his friend, Nick Adams, stood in the breakfast room. Both men wore BDUs, their deep male voices filling the room where they stood drinking coffee but already in the place they were going and it sounded foreign to me. Mom encouraged us to say good-bye quickly so that the men could get on the road and we did, most of us returning up the stairs for more sleep. The air-conditioning, blowing cool, dry air over our bodies drowned out the sound of the car pulling away.
The garden seemed always at its peak when Dad went to summer camp, my brothers expected to harvest the tomatoes, green beans, okra and cucumbers that weighed heavily and plentiful on the hilly rows. Occasionally, I was called upon to weed, stepping bare feet into the hardened footprints of my father in the dirt between the rows as my fingers searched for unwanted grass and weeds below the fruitful plants. My brothers, perhaps from too much rain or busy summer schedules, often neglected the garden and remembered their duty only as my father’s return approached. Major food wars with overripe vegetables took place in and around the garden and even into the far reaches of the yard before the boys offered my mother a disappointing harvest. Everyone appeared baffled at the lack of bounty. My mother, after all, hadn’t had much opportunity to keep after the boys because she spent my Dad’s absence dealing with various household calamities particular to each summer. Perhaps it was the washing machine that spewed water everywhere before refusing to work or the van suddenly riding about town in a plume of smoke.
The days after Craig’s departure to Boston can now be tallied in weeks. The house isn’t any quieter. Sometimes I find I’m not even alone at night as Rem’s rotation of musical beds now includes mine. The most difficult part of Craig’s absence is that I sit here in Asheville, indefinitely, while my life is somewhere else.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Weather Captivity
January creeps along as days fall into one another marked by an endless grey of barren trees and sky. Sleet falls like the shattering of fragile glass and interrupts the drizzle of near-freezing rain that resonates with its own rhythmic yet barely perceptible drip, drip, drip. Other days pass as the silent but chaotic bursts of snow fall into seamless white carpets. The precipitation and freezing temperatures essentially bar the door and the black arm chair in the living room corner becomes a refuge where, nearby, a stack of quickly absorbed library books grows daily and is replaced weekly.
Often, during bleak winter months I declare the consumption of all books in a particular category. For instance, I’ll read everything by Henry James, or read only women authors of the nineteenth century. But this month, I randomly choose books off the shelves in the small West Asheville branch of the library near my home. I’ve already worked my way through a couple of English country estates where wealthy extended families have nothing to do but fall in and out of love. On I go to austere Norwegian winters, through unhappy childhoods, marriages, and lives. A particular passage might beckon to be read aloud and I oblige, savoring the art that can assert itself through the written word while other narratives run forgetfully into each other.
Rem, too, eagerly races through his library books. Decidedly in a repetitive phase, Rem insists that we read the same book three or four times before moving to the next. This week a Mrs. Fox encourages us to go green while a haggard mother bird feeds each of her seven chicks one by one as the father bird rests comfortably on an adjacent branch. Laughing yet again at the drooping, downtrodden mother bird and her nonchalant partner, Rem returns to his new-found passion for drawing. Page after page of various scenes of his favorite pirate and his crew litter every room in the house and clutter the bulletin board as Rem seeks, quite seriously, to capture the images in his head onto paper. Tickled with a particular detail he presents his latest sketch with much aplomb. Upon close examination, the scribble reveals an anchor, a feather in a hat, a peg leg, a superfluously decorated sword. Without assistance I point out the skull and crossbones on the flag and cannons on the ship and enjoy that over-celebrated maternal sensation that my child is a genius.
The girls spend more days at home than at school, thrilled with the idea of freedom from the constraints of education, reading and sleeping through the morning before fretting about the loss of summer and the threat of school on Saturdays. I like having them underfoot on most days, Miren directing Lise and Rem in elaborate games of make-believe, costumes and sets cluttering bedrooms. They share a siblings’ camaraderie that stirs within me a pleasant jealousy. Darkness falls early still but the days feel long without Craig. School days and the subsequent running of children here and there fill the time that, on homebound days, sits expectant and empty.
Hats, under armor and gloves do not surface just for sled rides and snowball fights. Spring soccer commenced in the first week of January but practices took a back seat to the snow and ice that settled on the fields. Now in full swing, teammates hidden under winter gear and indistinguishable from one other, move quickly on the bright green turf, the snow piled just along the riverbank and up the surrounding hills.
All is not dismal. The practice fields at John B. Lewis Park represent the most picturesque setting for soccer that I’ve ever seen. Appealing, even in winter with the leafless trees revealing the entire length of passing trains, the subtle depth of the rolling hills and the blue hues of distant mountains, JBL’s canvas of seasonal beauty creates an environment synonymous with Asheville itself. The layout of the fields at JBL, not unlike Asheville, follow the contours of the land. The atmosphere reflects the laid back ease of life that we found prevalent when we moved here. Even the soccer club’s philosophy resembles the self-sufficient traditions of the Scotch-Irish who settled here, focusing on individual ball handling and skill building that sometimes doesn’t match well against the power teams from the larger clubs pulled from the Charlotte area whose parents scream and berate from the sidelines as their girls kick and run all over our girls.
My experience with the citizens of Asheville and the nearby areas match the children’s experience within their schools and on the soccer field. People from various means and walks of life come together easily and warmly for a common purpose. Children unload from cars, oversized gear bags slung over their shoulders, hailing from charming historical neighborhoods in the city and surrounding small towns or from carefully constructed self-contained communities along the interstate. They come from developments that rise up and down the mountains behind low rock walls that boast mountainous neighborhood names and from remote stretches of mountain property. Some of the children’s parents grew up in the area, went to school and played ball with each other while others come from places all over the country and even the world.
Undaunted by the winter weather, Asheville hosts a soccer tournament this week-end, daring teams from milder climates to brave frigid temperature as an added measure of the competition. This will be the first tournament of the spring season. Spring; I don’t think anyone’s fooled by this misnomer, hopeful, maybe, but not fooled.
Often, during bleak winter months I declare the consumption of all books in a particular category. For instance, I’ll read everything by Henry James, or read only women authors of the nineteenth century. But this month, I randomly choose books off the shelves in the small West Asheville branch of the library near my home. I’ve already worked my way through a couple of English country estates where wealthy extended families have nothing to do but fall in and out of love. On I go to austere Norwegian winters, through unhappy childhoods, marriages, and lives. A particular passage might beckon to be read aloud and I oblige, savoring the art that can assert itself through the written word while other narratives run forgetfully into each other.
Rem, too, eagerly races through his library books. Decidedly in a repetitive phase, Rem insists that we read the same book three or four times before moving to the next. This week a Mrs. Fox encourages us to go green while a haggard mother bird feeds each of her seven chicks one by one as the father bird rests comfortably on an adjacent branch. Laughing yet again at the drooping, downtrodden mother bird and her nonchalant partner, Rem returns to his new-found passion for drawing. Page after page of various scenes of his favorite pirate and his crew litter every room in the house and clutter the bulletin board as Rem seeks, quite seriously, to capture the images in his head onto paper. Tickled with a particular detail he presents his latest sketch with much aplomb. Upon close examination, the scribble reveals an anchor, a feather in a hat, a peg leg, a superfluously decorated sword. Without assistance I point out the skull and crossbones on the flag and cannons on the ship and enjoy that over-celebrated maternal sensation that my child is a genius.
The girls spend more days at home than at school, thrilled with the idea of freedom from the constraints of education, reading and sleeping through the morning before fretting about the loss of summer and the threat of school on Saturdays. I like having them underfoot on most days, Miren directing Lise and Rem in elaborate games of make-believe, costumes and sets cluttering bedrooms. They share a siblings’ camaraderie that stirs within me a pleasant jealousy. Darkness falls early still but the days feel long without Craig. School days and the subsequent running of children here and there fill the time that, on homebound days, sits expectant and empty.
Hats, under armor and gloves do not surface just for sled rides and snowball fights. Spring soccer commenced in the first week of January but practices took a back seat to the snow and ice that settled on the fields. Now in full swing, teammates hidden under winter gear and indistinguishable from one other, move quickly on the bright green turf, the snow piled just along the riverbank and up the surrounding hills.
All is not dismal. The practice fields at John B. Lewis Park represent the most picturesque setting for soccer that I’ve ever seen. Appealing, even in winter with the leafless trees revealing the entire length of passing trains, the subtle depth of the rolling hills and the blue hues of distant mountains, JBL’s canvas of seasonal beauty creates an environment synonymous with Asheville itself. The layout of the fields at JBL, not unlike Asheville, follow the contours of the land. The atmosphere reflects the laid back ease of life that we found prevalent when we moved here. Even the soccer club’s philosophy resembles the self-sufficient traditions of the Scotch-Irish who settled here, focusing on individual ball handling and skill building that sometimes doesn’t match well against the power teams from the larger clubs pulled from the Charlotte area whose parents scream and berate from the sidelines as their girls kick and run all over our girls.
My experience with the citizens of Asheville and the nearby areas match the children’s experience within their schools and on the soccer field. People from various means and walks of life come together easily and warmly for a common purpose. Children unload from cars, oversized gear bags slung over their shoulders, hailing from charming historical neighborhoods in the city and surrounding small towns or from carefully constructed self-contained communities along the interstate. They come from developments that rise up and down the mountains behind low rock walls that boast mountainous neighborhood names and from remote stretches of mountain property. Some of the children’s parents grew up in the area, went to school and played ball with each other while others come from places all over the country and even the world.
Undaunted by the winter weather, Asheville hosts a soccer tournament this week-end, daring teams from milder climates to brave frigid temperature as an added measure of the competition. This will be the first tournament of the spring season. Spring; I don’t think anyone’s fooled by this misnomer, hopeful, maybe, but not fooled.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Journeys
As Craig traversed the eastern part of the country under, I hope, the same clear blue skies that penetrated the frigid temperatures here, we spent our day following routines that felt foreign after the long snow-driven respite of late. Large, over-indulged snowmen and women stood unflinchingly stalwart through the sun’s brilliance in the white blanketed yards of the neighborhood as we drove to school for the first time this week. Tired Christmas trees, waiting at the curb for recycling were revived for winter displays behind the snow creatures, or, in our case, at the entrance to the t-shaped igloo that covers most of the front yard. A snow-king on Sulphur Springs earned his title with a stunning crown of icicles, both delicate and extravagant, that shimmered in the sun. Rem’s own coveted icicles lie in the freezer, crossed like a pair of ancient swords, too cold to hold in his hands and too lovely to relinquish. Without his snow-mates, Rem returned to lavish Captain Hook enactments that necessitated unloading the toys in his bedroom into the living room where a large number of stuffed animals sat piled in a dismantled soccer net as I kept guard.
I paged through more of young Kerouac while waiting in school car lines moving from the earlier, stately New England of Emersons, Alcotts and Thoreau to the gritty, factory landscape of Kerouac’s childhood. During the last week, as Craig alternately fed the fire with wood from the woodpile and scraps saved for various projects never to be realized, I stayed near the hearth to soak in the intense heat and read aloud from Craig’s architectural guidebook for Boston. Brief summaries of buildings old and new that together string a timeline of Boston inundated us with every imaginable significance of a place so thick with historical, literary and academic achievement that the notion of New Englanders’ aloof and impenetrable nature seems well-earned (even if not desirable for a family with no relatives or friends within a six hundred mile radius).
The moon shone from the darkness into my bedroom window like a movie projector light in the theater, interrupting the quiet that finally settled into the house with a bright intensity that felt loud. I looked up distractedly from my book, having read the same page over and over without following the words, and watched time pass as the moon moved out of view. Strangely, the Bo Deans played in my head through the day but I chose Beethoven piano sonatas to lull me toward sleep before the phone rang and Craig’s tired voice, as though he was in the next room, announced his arrival “home” and I could fully succumb to dreamland.
I paged through more of young Kerouac while waiting in school car lines moving from the earlier, stately New England of Emersons, Alcotts and Thoreau to the gritty, factory landscape of Kerouac’s childhood. During the last week, as Craig alternately fed the fire with wood from the woodpile and scraps saved for various projects never to be realized, I stayed near the hearth to soak in the intense heat and read aloud from Craig’s architectural guidebook for Boston. Brief summaries of buildings old and new that together string a timeline of Boston inundated us with every imaginable significance of a place so thick with historical, literary and academic achievement that the notion of New Englanders’ aloof and impenetrable nature seems well-earned (even if not desirable for a family with no relatives or friends within a six hundred mile radius).
The moon shone from the darkness into my bedroom window like a movie projector light in the theater, interrupting the quiet that finally settled into the house with a bright intensity that felt loud. I looked up distractedly from my book, having read the same page over and over without following the words, and watched time pass as the moon moved out of view. Strangely, the Bo Deans played in my head through the day but I chose Beethoven piano sonatas to lull me toward sleep before the phone rang and Craig’s tired voice, as though he was in the next room, announced his arrival “home” and I could fully succumb to dreamland.
Monday, January 10, 2011
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