First Month

Today marks one month with this practice of writing a once daily piece sparked by one thing each day. Each moment I've written about, though, has unraveled other things. I've been tempted to just go to bed without writing (can I do it tomorrow?) but the date stamp on the blog is too honest for that. That's where the five minute pieces come in. And yet some of those pieces are the ones that have the most in them.

This whole exercise reminds me of the nature photographer Jim Brandenburg's project when, for three months, he took only one picture each day and published them. All the pictures were taken in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and all of them were outstanding by themselves. But taken together and knowing that he had only one chance to snap the shutter closed made the pictures hard to believe. The book came out before the advent of digital photography, but even with film the artist usually takes many pictures and selects the one with the right light, framing, texture, and contrast. The art in this book was a commitment to each moment. There was no decision to be made later. Moment, captured, released. It is the releasing that makes art, art. Without letting it go and seeing what happens -- who will notice, will they care, what are they looking for? -- it remains captured. Not even the artist can see it fully until the work has been sent out into the world for someone else to see. Yet that is the hardest part.

We have a Brandenburg photo in our dining room, a gift from two great friends from college. It is the tip of a wooden canoe gliding into a glass lake that reflects the golden leaves on the banks. It is so still there isn't a ripple. Yet we know that the boat went on and went past the trees, maybe even past the lake on a portage trail. But at this moment, there is only stillness. I don't know if it is from his collection of once-a-day photos, but just seeing it reminds me that there is art to be seen, heard, touched, smelled and tasted in the moments of the day. They aren't all meant to be captured and released, by why not let at least one of them?

Full Moon

We were standing on a dirt road looking into the night sky. There were crackles coming from fires and the sound of a motorbike far off, but other than that, the night sky held the only lights. This village of a few hundred families scattered between rice fields and trees had yet to get electricity. It took me back to the week I spent with my brother in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area days before leaving for Asia. There we had slipped the canoe into the night waters and drifted into the lake under stars. Now I stood with other college students and some girls from the center where we were staying. One girl, Iritoo, who took Joy for her English name, asked me if I could see the rabbit in the moon. The rabbit? Isn't it a man in the moon? She showed me ears, a tail, a body. I could see nothing but the bulging eyes and mouth of the man. From where we stood in Thailand, the man was cocking his head as if to say, "really, now?" When the rabbit finally came to me, it was like looking at one of those 3-D images from the '80's where at first glance it was a picture of colorful lines and then an airplane or farm scene popped out at you, only to disappear if you looked at it too long. They were a hit at the mall kiosks. Joy got a kick out of my reaction and so named me "Dai", short for "Kradai" or rabbit in Thai. The name stuck. When I returned to teach a few years later, my Thai name remained, Dai.

Tonight the moon is full again, flooding the frigid air with a burst of light. Somewhere across the globe it was studied last night and maybe someone else saw the rabbit for the first time.

Zion

I just looked at pictures taken at Zion National Park today that featured Rob, Grandma Elwyn, Uncle Marty and Aunt Joan (the photographer). The jagged red rocks are lightly coated with snow and clouds. They reach up with abandon as if the river below them were a world away.

Enter Dietrich, for whom bedtime seems a world away (though not for his parents who see it is nearing 8 pm). He is singing and tapping on the dishwasher (at my knees): "Sunrise on the iceberg, all day long, until the moon comes up, Sunrise on the iceberg, all day long and then night comes and then the moon shows up - a dun dun dun - Sunrise on the iceberg all day all day long boom boom!" He goes on (and is now singing in the bathroom upstairs to Elliott and Ryan): "Airplane full of food, don't know what this was, it's a cardboard plane. An airplane full of food, it's an airplane full of food with nothing in it. Well I don't know why it's an airplane full of food, but I don't know why, Airplane full of food.".

Back to what I was saying about those mountains? Well, how can I top a sunrise all day long and an airplane full of food (is there any food on airplanes anymore?).

The mountains...one picture is of Rob by the muscley tree where Ryan and I had our engagement picture taken during a Utah trip with Joan and Marty in 2003. The tree looks just as strong now as it did then. It's lowest branch reaches out before going straight up like it is flexing its bicep to the mountains above. I was reading about famous Wisconsin trees and there is folklore that the trees with abrupt bends in their lower branches were shaped that way by native Americans and settlers to mark a trail. The limbs were pulled down when young and as they grew made an 'L' shape. Rob stands stoically by the tree, though I'm sure the day's hiking had plenty of laughter. Marty struck a "Carol" pose on a rock (did Rob let him get there first?) and I'm sure Joan recounted the hostess, Joy, who pretended there were no tables available. We had been hiking most of the day. It was almost two p.m., no tables, really? Joan somehow got past Joy and found us a table. How we were overJoyed-jokes followed for the rest of the day.

Grandma Elwyn looks especially relaxed in the pictures. When I told my Grandparents I would be making my first trip to the Rockies in the spring of 1994 I remember Grandma's face lighting up. "I just love the Rockies," she'd said. It had never dawned on me that someone who had lived in Wisconsin the whole time I knew her could have a fondness for another place. I brought her back a candle that she still has on a window sill. But tomorrow she comes back to Wisconsin. Her time in the Rockies this year has rejuvenated her and given her a new lease on life. I can imagine it will be hard to leave the desert where flowers are blooming and grass keeps living through the winter. Back here the snow has turned to rocky ice. Yesterday my eyeballs were cold. Not even in Northfield have I experienced that. But maybe Grandma will bring back with her some of the awe of the red cliffs of Zion and some of the tenaciousness of the desert. And soon, or at least in three months, it will be spring.

What time is it?

I don't really know. Well over a month ago my cell phone stopped working. It's not that I don't miss having it, I just haven't missed it enough to either drive to Janesville, the nearest T-mobile store front, or order one from the internet. I am on here enough (almost a month of daily writing, some drivel, many random pieces) but have yet to order a new phone. I try to remember to wear a watch, especially on days we are going on the bus, but I rarely do. So I am often the one wondering what time it is. Today, though, Dietrich wanted to know how you know what time it is when there aren't any numbers? He saw a clock at Target with hands that pointed to slashes around a circle. There were no numbers. So we started with making clocks using cardboard and brads, the brads being the highlight of the whole activity. Elliott made a paper CD of all the songs he could think of that deal with time or numbers. Then we found the "o'clock's" of their day: wake up at 7, go to swimming at 9, make dinner at 5, go to sleep at 8.

When the boys were babies I longed for a clocked schedule but by 5 months accepted that it wasn't going to happen and even if it did for a day or two -- nap at 8:30, nurse at 10, nap at 1, walk at 3, bed by 8, what success! -- it was short lived. The only clockwork times that seemed to stick were wake at 3, wake again at 5! I began to think about it life with two babies more like a dance than a work schedule. I tossed the books that suggested anything other than routine would drive us all crazy. The dance of our days had great rhythm, some days, and other times was awkward and searching for a beat. I was always exhausted, but at least I was tired in a way I could live with and not measuring up to somebody else's schedule. Amazingly, they eventually did find more or less a pattern, to the point that one afternoon when they woke early from a nap and we were at the grocery store at 2 in the afternoon, I felt like I was skipping school. The day is so bright! And where are all the other babies? Right, asleep.

Since the new year began another time has taken hold of me. The boys are going to 5 this year, that magical age that Carl Schurz, in my hometown of Watertown, Wisconsin in the late 1800's, decided kids could begin going to school. The idea wasn't his, of course, it was brought from Germany. I've visited the First Kindergarten many times. It was the one attraction, besides the golf course, that we would show to our house guests. I had the tour down after a year, and would ask questions to get the guides to tell the information I already knew from other guides. The kindergarten was a small building with a door, a stove, and space for about 6 kids and a teacher to fit comfortably. The wax mannequins posing in the school are holding hands in a circle (or at least they were in the 80's when we frequented the museum). They are singing a German song.

Fast forward a hundred years or so and kids in our neighborhood are going to a school with 375 kids between Kindergarten and second grade. They wake at 6 to catch a bus at 7 and to return home at 3. Five-year-olds. Why do I feel I am the only one who finds this outrageous? The boys have learned their world from the comfort of their home (and the library, the museums, the zoos, the trains, buses, their relatives houses, their friends houses, their church, the grocery store, the hiking trails, parks, beaches, lakes) for the past 4 years. Why does this age signal a sudden shift to learning in an environment made up entirely of their peers and one adult for half of their waking day? Whose time is it, anyway?

Mid-winter speech time

Having a hard time even thinking much less writing after listening to the State of the Union tonight. I remember clicking around the channels as a kid looking for some station that wasn't covering the speech but every one was tuned into the President, whatever he had to say. I never could follow it, but had little choice but to watch it -- or go to bed early. This week I was looking forward to it and made sure the boys were in bed well before 8. I wanted to hear something -- anything -- other than the bantering that has been covered in the news. And I was not disappointed. President Obama encouraged, chided, joked, recalled, and looked forward all in the space of (about) an hour. My favorite was the chiding, of course, but I think the point that will stick with me was that government was not elected to do nothing (or wait, was that still chiding?). Hopefully that will be the time-out that congress needs to get working...together.

The Bulletin

Every few months or so I will try it again: a google or amazon or library search for a book (new or just new to me) that brings together the day to day of parenting and the life long journey of following Christ. It seems the term "Christian" sends the search engines to books on how to calm anger (which I could definitely use); why it is good to sing God's praises in the midst of chaos (oh yes, could use more of that, too); steps to being a "better" wife (whatever that means, I could probably stand a touch-up there, too); and ways to make your authority understood by your children (isn't there just an injection for that?). Using "spiritual" as the limiting key word before "parenting" yields broader topics: raising spiritual champions; books on winning the spiritual battle for women, parents (au pairs?); and books on putting the humane back in humanity. To be sure, a thoughtful group of parents can get discussion going from just about any of these, but few have truly encouraged me to parent any differently.

A welcomed exception is The Quotidian Mysteries: Liturgy, Laundry and Women's "Work" by Kathleen Norris. It is a tiny paperback that is mostly a talk she gave at a conference and took just days to read (about the attention span for me). She didn't tell me how or even why, but somehow made me see the reality of our daily lives for the holy territory that it is. The daily tasks of our life are...our life. We wouldn't be anything if it weren't for them. I have long lost the sense that there is a destination to strive towards and rather to enjoy the journey, but I get caught up in the pull towards getting it over with. There is always this afternoon, tonight, next week, next year to think about. And the more independent my children become, the more space my mind has to be taken up by these Screwtape letters tendencies. Norris' book helped bring me back to earth, where God is and where God sent us to be, at least for now.

Today as I was taking the boys to swimming lessons and listening to Justin Roberts (hey hippopotamus! Could you do that dance, could you do it for us now?) I of course began thinking about the Apostle's Creed. What if I threw my two cents into the Christian parenting search engine? The boys and I have been reading the Apostle's Creed at breakfast, bits at a time, and finding Bible stories that bring it to life. We did a collage of colored paper one day after reading the creation story -- the boys picked out colors that reminded them of each creative act and glued them together. My favorite is the Penguin Dietrich made who spends time on both sea and land, making it the perfect creature for day 4. I'm not sure what I would say, or how I would get past the first few lines of the creed (that is as far as we are), but if I'm hungry for books that are rooted in Christian worship tradition, maybe someone else is, too? The chapters could simply follow a traditional order of worship. The subheading: what's in the bulletin?

Red light, Green light

We brought the old red baby jogger out of storage last week. The sidewalks were too free of snow to pull the boys in a sled but not free enough to get out the their bikes. We were short on the time and patience that it takes to let them walk without some kind of vehicle, and I refused to drive a half mile. Ryan was off of work, so he pushed nearly 80 pounds of children to art class. They easily resumed the jogger zone-out, which is strikingly similar to the CTA trance. We were there in 10 minutes.

This week we did the same routine except on the way home I pushed a jogger full of art and called out "Red light ... Green light!" as they ran ahead. The red lights were spaced just far enough apart that they didn't notice it was mostly up hill. About a block into it, Dietrich became an emergency vehicle, donned imaginary lights and was no longer subject to red, green, or yellow. Elliott kept up the game, but slowed after a few steps into each green light. Then he did laps -- way ahead, then back to the jogger and me, then behind us and way ahead again. Dietrich needed a bigger vehicle, so he took on the jogger, though still not being tall enough to see over the top, it crunched into the snow banks. He finally gave up on that and held the leash on the handle which is about the poorest way to steer a jogger. "Maybe you can push this and I'll go ahead, yeah, that's okay!" he called as he caught up to Elliott.

I kept calling out green, red and yellow lights even though the rules had long demised. The air had returned to its winter claim on my face, but my hands were in warm gloves and feet in brand new smartwools. The boys kept running, stopping and starting again as noted by the sound of clompy boots on the sidewalk ahead of me. I often say it is my job to "wear them out" so that they sleep well at night. But it is also my delight to see their bodies in motion. I marvel that they not only run, but run and laugh and find snow to pick up and read a bumper sticker on a parked car and devise a vehicle to pretend to be all at the same time. Their constant motion can be excruciating when trying to get dressed and teeth brushed and boots on and jackets and where is your hat? and please stop moving! But when it is on an unhurried walk home it brings me back to why I am with them and who I am and whose I am, too.

Corporate

This week the Supreme Court made a decision that unleashes businesses and other corporations to financially support the political process. The argument being that it violates the free speech amendment to limit any individual in their support for political candidates. A corporation has been in-corporated, or made into a body, and so the protection applies equally to businesses and human beings. The argument against such a ruling, other than decades of precedent, is that such a practice tips the playing field in favor of those corporations that can afford to financially support their candidate. I am troubled by the decision, and worried of the direction this could further take the political process. I much prefer how Obama's campaign was boosted by small gifts from a lot of people (a LOT of people). At the same time, I realize that corporations and their lobbies have a history that long precedes the decision of influencing (shaping, demanding!) political decisions. But how far reaching is this new decision?

The decision and discussion I've heard makes me think about bodies in general. What does it mean to be "made into a body"? What makes up a body? What can and can't an incorporated body do differently from a wiggly, wet human being birthed from a tired, achingly happy woman?

The church talks about the Body and the body a lot. We eat the body of Christ; we pray as one body; we welcome the baptized into the Body of Christ, the Church; we are separated into congregations, districts, synods, denominations, that come together to worship and make decisions as a body. (Am I even spelling this word correctly anymore? Can I tell you how many times I've written b-o-y-d just now? Body! Why are there not two d's?) That coming together is Christianity, not the fighting over polity, or the demanding stance of personal salvation, or the ten steps to making prayer make you rich. Christianity happens when we come together into a body to take part in Christ -- through worship, eating, and returning to wherever we are. And when we are not there, the body remembers us. We are a part of it through those who are gathered.

Then there is our own body. The one that without we could have no corporations of any kind. In the West, the body has been divided up by philosophers over so many centuries we're not sure if we should relate to our bodies or separate our less-defined souls from our bodies or are our bodies all we really are? And for women, bodies have been divided even more: how should we conceive, give birth, nurse and wean the other bodies that come from us and our union with another body? To whom do we listen and trust when we have questions about our bodies? Why do we have questions anyway -- after all, it's my body right? Shouldn't I just know? Or can I not even know who I am without the reflection of another who can help me see myself? To the last question, I hear only a resounding, yes. To the question of how a corporation has the right to free speech, I have no idea.

We took part in the Friday ritual last night. Though it is a dinner and it takes place in a restaurant, the food is only part of the ritual. We take up the largest table in the corner under a shelf with a model train and next to the sign advertising "Tezerra", one of the few hints that Deegs serves Mexican food. Smoke sneaks its way around the corner, but goes unnoticed until we go out into the misty chill after filling up on fish, french fries, and rye bread. The server, whom most people at the table know by first name, gets our drink orders hurries back to the kitchen. Last night we were 6 adults and two children. The children spoke as if we were on the sidewalk outside, not sitting right next to them. This ritual, rooted in the Catholic practice of abstaining from meat of Fridays, is repeated in nearly every restaurant in Wisconsin. Our crowd of Moravians and Lutherans fit right in, and has, for as long as I can remember.

At some point we got on the topic of just what I was doing in Asia and when were you there again? The boys being sedated mildly by then with french fries and katchup, I was able to describe some of the courses I took on Term in Asia and how I ended up going back to Thailand to teach. My parents told of their 41 hour flight to visit me when I was teaching, and the kind attentiveness of their flight attendants. The exchange rate was favorable to my U.S. visitors and my parents treated 6 of my co-volunteers to dinner, all for about $40, what we were making in 2 weeks! I said that I'd lived through another economic downturn in 1997 -- difference being that I could leave that recession whenever I wanted to.

Tonight we watched a movie about a group of students and their teacher who together crossed boundaries others thought were impossible to cross. And the thing that brought them all together, at least initially? Writing every day, about their lives, honestly.

Quick before it's midnight

My awe of what Hilary (Onemomsyearofgratitude) did has just increased dramatically as I realized that every day means, well, every day! How did she do it? Maybe a theme would help here. Today I thought of bits that I wanted to write down, but they all have fallen asleep, much like I am any moment now. Tomorrow I will begin before this happens, even if there seems to be little to write about. There was a snow removal project on Monroe St today. Dietrich watched in his pajamas from our bedroom window. The benefits of living on a busy street(s) did not include "fascinating trucks to entertain kids while mom takes peaceful shower and sneaks out a few pieces of ratty paper out of kids' room". Where do they take all the snow once they remove it from the sidewalks and gutters? Are there mounds of snow just out there? Can we play on them?

Bound Together

We brought home a canvas bag full of books from the library to give us something to think about other than the gray gloom that seems to be parked on the midwest. Why can't it just snow and make everything soft and white again?

We read a story about a fox who can't see past his own schemes to harvest tasty grapes. It isn't that he doesn't want to share with the rest of the community, he refuses to recognize the gifts of others who could help him. Instead he pushes forward an agenda bound to fail. There are animals stacked on animals and jumps and twists and eventually each animal ends up on the ground without any grapes. When there is rebellion and each member of the community gets to the grapes using their God-given gifts, the fox turns against himself, walks away, and huffs that he didn't want the grapes anyway.

I hope that I am more like the possum who finally calls the fox's plans hopeless and urges the others to use their gifts. But really I look a lot like the fox who has a plan and sticks to it, even when strategy assessment is obvious. How many times do I have in my mind the things-that-must-happen today? How many little boys' questions do I brush off to pursue those things? I know it is bound to happen when we share almost all of our days together. But which gifts am I missing when I say, "Just a minute"? Justin Roberts (justinroberts.org) has a song about this often spoken phrase of motherhood. When mom says "just a minute, she means more than just a minute". The little one being asked to wait turns his thoughts to what a minute really is. Aren't we all just minutes? When his baby brother was just a minute old he was so small; and Grandma? "She is many, many, many, many.. minutes. We're all just minutes". And then his mom hugs him, and he feels more than just a minute.

Tonight as we read our new books together, Elliott was so tired he needed to move some part of his body to stay awake. His wiggles finally became just touches of the page, then the binding. He went gently along the jacket cover, then reached in the spine of the book, poking into that most curious empty space created when the book is opened wide. Tomorrow he will be back in his studio in the basement making covers for books, or entire new books, or tiny booklets for his Justin Roberts CD's. He's figuring out how it all fits together, and then recreating it with whatever he can find (and leaving a great deal of it behind on the floor). Whatever plans I have can wait, just a minute, to see his latest creation.

From Cake to Chaos

A year ago we made a cake with a big 44 in the middle surrounded by Obama in blue letters. Our playgroup met at our house to watch the event on a bunny-eared TV (once we took our places we couldn't move or the reception went out). I realized maybe I should have been alone, or just with Ryan and the boys, when I watched. I thought I had had my moment of emotional release in Grant Park on election night when Ryan and I and many thousands of others watched the numbers roll in on the jumbotrons. I remember a collective sigh -- the one that comes before you cry -- among the crowd at the announcement. We watched in relief, amazement and humility as something benign as numbers on a screen showed that the world would wake up a new place. How this new world would work itself out nobody new. But Obama stood for change and we were hungry for that.

We walked home from the Garfield red line station with about 50 other people all headed toward the island of Hyde Park. There were a hundred more still waiting at the bus stop, and no buses in sight. There was a fast moving parade of cars with passengers hooting out the windows. People lining the few businesses we passed gave us waves and high fives. Shouts of "Obama!" scattered through the cool midnight air. I felt I was trespassing on a part of the city I knew little about, save from newspaper reports. Somehow, now that Obama would be our president, it was okay to be there -- at least for one night. We would return to our own places but for a brief moment there was some kind of unity, although it is a shattered one at best.

Long before midnight last night we learned that the party in which Obama stands is not getting a standing ovation. Some have called it a "referendum" on his presidency. But what else could we expect? Obama is tirelessly pursuing an agenda no other president has had to face and making unpopular decisions now so that future generations need not suffer another decade of wait and see politics. Perhaps if we worked more on unshattering our deeply divided lives we would have more to build our political process upon on and less to fight about. Not that the Obama administration is in chaos, but the political process, in DC at least, seems to be a bit chaotic one year after we welcomed Barack Obama and his family into the White House.

Just a beginner

Leaving the house when a pan of rotini, sausage, spinach and fresh mozzarella is baking in the oven and the boys are jovially talking around the table while eating is not the ideal time to leave. Being dark and mid-January doesn't help. My motivation had begun waning about noon, and it was nearly 6 hours since then. It would be easy to justify: I went last week, didn't I? I could always run in the morning. I have that book due tomorrow and over 100 pages to finish. But Ryan said he'd wait for me to eat (even out pasta-addicted son will not eat such a busy dish) and that I'd have fun. Enough said. I got dressed to ski -- a 5K this week.

When I arrived there were people putting on numbers and warming up outside. I put mine on and did the same, with a headlamp that put a blue haze on the snow and wasn't real helpful. When I returned to the start everyone was gathering around the line and before I knew it, we were off. I was the only one with a headlamp and water bottle. I guess this is all part of being a beginner. Being one of the very few classic skiers out there, I quickly slipped to the back and was passed by another classic skier. But I found my rhythm and felt my heart rate increase. Another woman passed me about a mile into it, and a second as we crested the first (and I thought the last) long hill. There would be time to catch up on the gently sloping ridge line (that is being generous, this is Madison after all, not the Rockies).

What I didn't realize was that the race course turns onto a trail I had never skied. It reminded me of Umstead park near Durham, NC where I once took my willing parents on a hike on a warm, though rainy, day in November. The last leg of the trail was a long ascent that curled around so that when I said, "It's just around the corner," it wasn't a complete lie. I had no idea where the top was on this hill, but I saw people coming down the other side through the grove of trees that separated the trail.

When I finally reached the top it hadn't occurred to me that given the length and incline of what I just went up, the descent could be fast -- really fast. The warm days make the evening snow shiny and slick. And I am no longer skiing on my mom's fiberglass skis from 1978. Focus on where you want to be, I thought at the same time trying not to think, those light poles are awfully close to the track! I knew there was a sharp curve where I first veered onto the new (to me) trail. I had huffed to some bystanders, "The course goes down the hill here, right?" To which they responded, "Oh no, first you go that way -- UP the hill!"

The curve at the bottom could not be taken at this ridiculous speed. What am I doing going this fast? I reached out my right leg and curled it into the snow enough to get me around the corner, but as soon as I had leveled back, another corner came up. I switched legs and felt wobbly. But I had no other choice. To fall here would be not great. There was another classic skier behind me, too, so it could be the pile up of those left behind. Maybe the 10K racers, as they lapped us, would stop to scoop us up? I chose to feel whatever strength was left in my legs and trust that years of pt and the fear of a skier pile-up would be enough. And it was. I rounded the corner, saw the same bystanders who gave me an encouraging cheer (do they feel toward classic skiers the way triathletes feel when they see someone on a mountain bike? Glad they are out there, so sorry they are working so hard?) and from here I knew the course. I came in with one of the 10Kers in 28:54. Yes, lapped. This is the best thing for me since swimming an open water mile and being passed, easily, by 10 year olds. The rotini was delicious, too.

Tides

Toddler meltdowns should surprise no one who has ever been at the beach long enough to watch the tide roll in. There you are in your low chair, butt nearly making a divot in the sand, heels digging into the dry sand, book in right hand to face away from the sun, slightly. Then there is a dampness to the foot-digging. The lull of the waves grows louder and distracts you from the page. People who once walked at a comfortable distance away from you are now practically tripping over your feet. The sandpipers are so close to you that they begin to distract you, too. Then you realize the beach bag spilling out your afternoon pursuits is about to be swamped by the next wave! What to pick up first -- the chair, the umbrella, the dry towel, the bag of stuff? Once you've moved back you realize it wasn't all that immenent anyway, but the mere threat was enough to get your heart pumping.

So it is with our four year olds. Day in and day out, the blood sugar plummets, the delights of the day become the fights of the early night. A child who whispered, "I love you, Daddy" at the beginning of the day is not red-faced and wide mouthed at the mention of dinner being nearly ready. Another child literally bounces around the room until the giggling becomes spilling my pile of laundry and its unfathomable consequence: no simulated airplane flying tonight (and ensuing 45 minute scream festival).

And the worst of it? It surprises me every single day. I've been in the beach chair, I know what is coming, and yet I seem to forget how the world -- and its almost every child -- rolls in on itself at the end of the day (thankfully our kids missed the memo that tidal changes are more than once a day).

Frozen fog

Frozen fog settled on us overnight making the trees the bright spot in the day. As the day warmed up, the frost flaked off the tree branches and floated down like snow. We're in the holding pattern: enough moisture to keep us damp, not enough to make it snow. The snow that is still piled up is greying by the day. Snowbanks on the street corners make pointing pencil tips of ice. We're ready for a fresh coat of light to bring us out of the pattern. Until then, there is the indoor pool. It is too warm for lap swimming (I have always thought so, but today I tried to swim and I felt light headed) but perfect for underwater tea parties and practicing to float. Dietrich held on to a noodle and dunked himself under, then pulled himself back up -- delighted at his new found love of exhaling underwater. Elliott jumped in three times, though "jump" is being generous. But it was enough to encourage him (and me) that he really can do it. Outside the floor to ceiling windows the white trees kept flaking, but inside, we were transported to some other world, where it is 88, sunny, and wet all the time.

Dinner guests

Tonight we celebrated the birthday of NoNo and YesYes. They did take up room at the table, but they didn't eat much as they are the imaginary friends/daughters of Dietrich and Elliott. They thought of this on Monday when we made a meal plan for the week. And it was not just an excuse to make ridiculously good cupcakes. The cake was chocolate vegan and the frosting was leftover chocolate buttercream from the Yule log. We had leftover snowmen tin liners and toothpick decorations for the top. When it came time to blow the candles out, Elliott and Dietrich helped their friends out. The best part? The dinner guests' plates are ready to go back in the cupboard (which Ryan just did as I wrote this). So, next time you are wishing for some company, try out the imaginary friends' birthday party!

Popcorn

We were looking for a book about how books are made. Beyond binding, cover, front and back, I know very little of the vocab for publishing but Elliott will not let my empty knowledge of the subject go on much longer. He wants to know what the glue is called that he can see in the binding. We did not luck out and find a book on publishing, nor did we have any luck with LINKcat (why "cat"?), the library's search engine. What we did find was a book on popcorn and why not check that out? We were planning a movie afternoon. We've tried this once before, on a cold October afternoon when I was out of energy to read books, play games, and sound interested in whatever it was that they were interested in at the time. So we went to the library and checked out "Shaggy". It is the 90's version of Shaggy DA, a lawyer-turned-dog uncovers a scientific scam and learns to show his affection for his family. It was too long, and I had no good answers for what a lawyer does, but Dietrich loved it anyway. Elliott was bored and began jumping around on the couch making it miserable for those trying to sit on the couch. So here it is, a gloomy Friday afternoon, our neighbors lent us a DVD, why not have another movie day?

We should have just read the popcorn book. Instead we watched the tale of a penguin family and their heart wrenching adventures of their only son. Our neighbor had cautioned that the movie is realistic in its challenges to wildlife -- but also incredibly cute. Five minutes into the movie, when some of the penguin fathers abandon their nests to go and feed, and thus leave their eggs easy prey to the onlooking gulls, Dietrich is curled into a ball, his cheeks flush. And the scenes escalated from there -- another gull attack (non-fatal), a leopard seal near-attack, nearly lost at sea on an iceberg, an encounter with poachers, and the near loss of the entire rookery's chicks. Of course in the end all the penguins are okay and the poachers are drowned, victims of their own violence. But there is no reassurance for someone who has yet to lose his ability to live in the moment. Dietrich experienced the hellish worry of the penguins about to be eaten by the seal as much as he relaxed with relief when one penguin launched, and lodged, a snowball into its mouth. I knew too well that the penguins would come out on top. I couldn't get in there like he could. Elliott was less bored with this movie (there was no jumping around) but he didn't express much while watching. He occasionally tried to comfort Dietrich, but wasn't sure how best to do that, either. He mostly just watched, sleepily, on my opposite side.

At times I thought I should have never turned it on, or should have turned it off at the sight of the first gull. Wasn't this supposed to make for an easy afternoon? Instead we watched all 76 minutes of the show, then completed the quiz afterwards. By then Dietrich had stopped crying and was relieved to see how the penguins marched off together. But something had settled on him. We talked about the difference between hunters, who hunt for animals legally, and poachers, who take animals illegally to sell for money. We talked about how there are predators and prey, some of each for every animal. But all our talking did little for the emotional roller coaster he had just survived. I was mostly glad to have been next to him during it. Tomorrow, we're reading Popcorn.

Stumped

The crunchy snow of last week's cold snap has given way to snow that squeaks and makes slush, only to freeze overnight and make treacherous footing (and a terrific excuse not to) for running. Before it melts to the grass, which may take more than a four day warming trend, I wanted to get in more sledding. When we arrived at the mild hill a city work crew was sawing the limbs off of a tree that fell in early December when 17 inches arrived overnight after a mild November (where they not ready? So many of the trees in the city have lost limbs, it makes me wonder if they simply were not girded up for the winter yet). Elliott took right to the hill, went over the bump and glided into the squishy snow. Dietrich propped himself near his sled and fixed his gaze on the truck with a boom extended and the workers with their chainsaws. For the next 40 minutes he watched the tree get smaller until it was only a trunk. When that was felled, he said, "Now they are making something I really like -- a stump for me to sit on!" I thought of the Giving Tree and how the old man returns to his dear friend the tree to rest his weary body after a lifetime of life. Soon the boom truck was replaced with a truck that had a claw operated by a worker in a seat above the cab. It picked up load after load of branches and loaded them into a dump truck. Finally, he put the trunk on top. It filled two trucks. After they had all cleared out and drove to the other side of the park for the next damaged tree, we went over to where the tree had fallen. It was close to the play equipment. Saw dust spread over the snow and branches poked up like spring daffodils caught by surprise after an April snow fall. But we could not find the stump. We kicked some snow around, thinking the workers had covered it during the removal. But no stump. "We'll find it in the spring, I guess," I offered, but I was convinced it should be right there. Dietrich had forgotten about how happy the stump would make him and suggested a game of hide and seek instead (sledding anyone?). So now we have a treasure to look forward to in the spring: a stump in the park -- it has to be there, right?

5 mintue painting

Whenever in the woods with my aunt Joan (who has passed it on to my brother) there comes a time for a 5 minute painting. Small heavy paper is handed out. Paint brushes are dabbed with water. My dad has painted a likeness of man's best friend, Mogey. Elliott has painted elevators (yes, even in the woods). Dietrich made lines, tree colored. I'm not in the woods, and I do not have paints, but here goes:

I am drifting out of reading-aloud consciousness. The lines of words are blending together and I want nothing more than sleep, sweet sleep. Dietrich is propped on my right shoulder and his head sinks a bit into me. Elliott wiggles on my left not giving into the drowsiness of our sun-baked room surrounded by mounds of week-old, month-old snow. It is lopped over the porch like a blanket kicked aside on the bed. But the book is clever and it turns the words so that I cannot fake it. Stuart Little and his new friend Margalo with her sweet lyrics have made all of us want just one more chapter -- this is really the last one! Okay, but then Mommy needs some rest, just 5 minutes.

Starred Night

In my gmail inbox there are little stars next to the emails I either hope to read more thoroughly (which rarely happens) or need to respond to (no worries, Rachel, I will get to your rec letter!). But the stars I saw tonight were outside, the twinkly kind that despite how cold or cloudy or light-polluted the night is, are right there. Or not so right there. Some of them are so far away that by the time their light reaches us, they have died out. One I saw tonight was probably not a star at all but a planet with a glow around the outside. The ski trail had me turned around enough I couldn't figure out which direction I was looking, but it seemed too bright and vivid for a star. Ryan reports (sitting next to me with some Internet tool to look up what we can see in the night) that it was likely Jupiter. I was out there to participate in a 3K race for first timers. I watched one race in college (why wasn't I out there? I had been skiing since I was four!) but it was day light and the field quite small. At the 3K race there were only 16 of us, and it was quite dark. Most people race on skates, but a few on classic. After I finished (in12:15, I have no idea what that means, but I was the first classic skier, out of hardly any, to finish) I looped back around at a more graceful pace. At the turn around point the course sends skiers down a long, straight hill that makes enough speed to pole across the soccer fields and over another bump. The stars were competing with suburban light, to be sure, but their steadfast glow grounded me in the tracks. I felt feet over bindings over wood over fancy material around the wood over slick, tracked snow. I slipped underneath them, over the field, and back into the woods.

On my way back I saw the beginning of the 5 and 10K race. The lights from the ice rink back-lit the pack so that they were black stick figures gliding side to side (there were a couple classic racers). As they approached me the swish swish grew louder until they rounded the bend. There must have been at least 60 of them. Just as fast, they were gone, under the stars, to race into the night.

Thanks for the run

"At least then they'll be together," she said, talking easily but with breath to the woman running beside her. It was all I heard of the conversation as they and I whisked past each other on the sunrise lit path. But I could imagine the exchange. Maybe they were talking about kids going to school together, or an unexpected travel situation, or a new job that is taking partners far away from home.

I long for such an exchange. Before we moved, I used to run at least once a week with a friend along Lake Michigan on the south side of Chicago. We started out at 57th Street and worked our way either north or south before turning around to face the opposite weather on the way home. My first words upon meeting her on the corner, without fail: "I really feel tired today, can we take it easy on our way out to the lake?" My departing words, also without fail: "Thanks for the run today!" One of us said it, and the other always returned it. Of all the things I give thanks for during a day -- a door held open, groceries bagged and loaded into a cart, a child going to the potty on the first asking (a child doing anything on the first ask), hot food steaming on the table -- giving thanks for these runs stands out. After all, we were both out there, we were going the same pace, and we were encountering the same wind off the lake, often chunked with ice. But somewhere between my lousy feeling upon walking to meet her and returning to the same spot 40 to 100 minutes later, I became grateful. The day had dawned and I was a living, breathing part of it. Wherever the day went from here, I had been out there at the lake, running.

But the running was only part of it. As the miles clicked by, sometimes easily, sometimes with a side stitch or blazing sun or numb fingers, we talked. It didn't really matter about what, though from my running buddy it was often a whimsical story of her children, or a thorough review of last nights' book or movie or an article I just had to read in the NYTimes Magazine or Christian Century. She often followed up by delivering the article, along with some hand-me-down clothes to our doorstep later in the day. During the 2008 election, our miles went faster as we tried to fathom what was going on and would our neighbor really be president and who on earth is this Palin person anyway? It may have been breathy, and sometimes more one sided than the other, but over the miles we shared the bits of our lives that fit together to make it whole.

To my Chicago running buddy: thanks for the many, many runs. And thanks also to my Durham running buddies for the steamy runs in the forest and the slogging runs after a year of non-running (and two babies and abdominal surgery). And to the speedy running buddies in Minneapolis who helped me run in ways I hadn't dreamed possible. And finally to the running buddy in Asia who met me at ridiculous hours for a 20 minute out-and-back, everyday, which got it all started. And, to those who are hopefully in the future, we'll meet up soon. To God, thank you that this living and breathing and being whole is even possible.

Tap Water

"I'd like a glass of water, no ice please." Terrifically perfect the moment I drink it, water satisfies my thirst. Outside, water turned snow and ice give the dim noonday sun a blinding sparkle. I squint to see the road as I drive, the ski tracks as I glide, the traffic light on our way to the store. Water, blinding water. Inside water comes with the opening of a valve -- safe to wash clothes, prepare meals, and to drink. Somewhere under the foot of ice now creeping across the lakes of the Midwest water continues to move and fish are swimming in it. We need it and it doesn't take watching Lawrence of Arabia to know how much we appreciate it.

This fall Elliott's interest in plumbing directed us toward the streets and sanitation section of the children's library. Our first epic description of what happens to water when we send it out of our house was Flush. We read a chapter at a time. The image of the Chattooga River on fire -- in the 1970's -- changed my assumptions about water. It was in my lifetime that rivers were so polluted they could be lit with a match! Dietrich's favorite picture was of the toys and other objects caught by the screen as waste water enters the treatment plant. Elliott's? The first water closet and its tall neck and long, chain handle. It hasn't convinced us to set up a gray water system in our house (buckets hanging around in the bathrooms? Not a good idea with two four year olds) or take timed 3 minute showers. But reading books like Flush and nearly gagging while walking near Lake Mendota in July (Elliott almost threw up) has steered us toward taking care of water -- and not treating it as "ours" but as a borrowed gift. I trust that there is enough for what we need, but I am humbly aware that my sense of need and my love of comfort can be grossly distorted.

Today's sermon was filled with water imagery. Pastor Wilson drew our attention to how ordinary water is. It is a basic requirement for human survival. And even baptism in water is not described in the Bible as all that special -- Luke tells us that everyone was getting baptized. The extraordinary piece of Jesus' baptism is not in the water or the act of whoever was doing the baptizing but that the Holy came into the ordinary. In Jesus' baptism we witness the Creator of all entering into one of the most basic needs for all that is created -- water. We are told in the baptism story that God is interested in us and all the things of earth that keep us living: water, friendship, asking and receiving forgiveness.

Then the pastor turned our attention to what follows Jesus' baptism: prayer. As sure as we are about water coming out of a tap when we release the valve, the act to follow baptism is prayer. Jesus prays. "Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying...". It is right there. Water, baptism, prayer. Prayer admits that we are not alone in the day to day of our humanness. Prayer acknowledges we were created in and for communion with God and each other. For Jesus, what follows his prayer is the affirmation of who he is: "You are my Son". For us it is no different. When we pray, we are affirmed in who we are. We belong.

In the Tomie dePaola drawing in the Bible I'm referring to at my side, the people witnessing Jesus' baptism are standing far off, faceless, and looking toward the river. But I imagine the scene anything but serene. I imagine God's voice among a chaotic gathering of people -- maybe some have been there before, for others their first time at the river. There are kids voices pitched high, laughter and chatter among women, low conversations between aged men. Yet God's voice is among the people, over the water as it is in Genesis. Who knows who even heard it, but it was there and it is still here. God's word is among us as we make tea and cook noodles, shovel snow and scrape windshields.

Bits of a day

It's not that we did nothing all day, but the day went along without anything pressing. We picked up, Dietrich helped with laundry and bathrooms, Elliott made a book about Frog and Toad. A small train loop developed in the dining room. All of this took place over the morning while track 11 from Grammar Rock (remember School House Rock?) played on repeat. Oddly enough, this song has nothing to do with grammar but is about earning interest when you either put money in the bank or borrow from the bank. I do not remember this from grade school, but Dietrich loves it because the singer needs the money for an electric guitar (her ukulele doesn't play country western). It was another working day for Ryan, so we all missed our Saturday routine of me being out for a run while the boys (all three of them) stay in their jammies and make pancakes. But knowing that the two week block is coming to an end kept me smiling throughout the day (or at least not shouting when, at 1:30 in the afternoon, I insisted on getting dressed to go to the pool and the dawdling ensued) . The best surprise was to see lights on in the house as we turned onto our street from a long swim and cooperative Target trip. That warm glow of Ryan being home made all the bits of the day fit together.

Kindergarten and College: why the rush?

Maybe it was last night's Keyes Ave wine night conversation around kindergarten and how fast it is coming to our four-year-old babies that led me to post these comments after an interview with Katharine Brooks who wrote You Majored in What? Mapping your path from chaos to career. She was interviewed on Marketplace today and drew attention to the unfortunate fact that in a prolonged recession with deep job losses, college students are looking towards degrees that can land them a job asap. Here was my response:

If what is required for an economic jobs recovery is an entirely new industry, as mentioned in the weekly wrap, then we cannot afford to exchange creativity and ingenuity in higher education for practicality and efficiency. Sure, an engineering or computer science degree may seem the fast track to such a new industry. But why not as post-graduate study? Why not, instead of seeing liberal arts and science as either/or choices, encourage young people to pursue a liberal arts degree followed by graduate work that uses the foundation of reading, writing, and working diverse ideas into a coherent narrative that may then lead towards innovative industry? Or grant more time in liberal arts colleges to pursue more science? Why are we in such a rush to get our 22-year-olds into the job market? (end of comments to Marketplace)

The cynical side of me answers, "because then they will also be consumers, which our economy relies on!" but the parent in me knows that having a job gives young people a sense of security -- who wouldn't want that for their child? I was in no hurry to enter the job market after college. For one, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I also wanted to "give something back" after four years of indulging myself in ideas, writing, and friends to talk to about it all. And I sought adventure. Thailand was just the place for me those first years after college. I was saddened to learn that the abroad program that spurred my interest in southeast Asia is no longer being offered at St. Olaf. The trend for students is to study in China (emerging market) and South America (learning Spanish). Learning to speak Thai was hardly practical. But Thailand was entirely different than any place I had ever seen before. It shook me out of my idyllic college on the hill so that I could see beyond myself. I learned that as much as we differ from each other, we have as much to share. And, quite honestly, it was a lot of fun.

Has it led me to start the new, great industry that will yield 8 million jobs tomorrow so people can send their kids to college again? Probably not. Will it even be mentioned in my next job interview (well, seeing that there are none on the horizon...maybe?). Was I stone broke when I returned and worked at gruelling jobs (substitute teaching, need I say more?) to make the ends meet? Yes. But was it entirely worth it? A resounding yes. No rush kids -- 4 and 24 and 84 year olds alike!

Seeing and doing

I had just cleared the mouth of the driveway down to the ice that has been there for weeks. Dietrich was taking powdery snow and "salting" along the sidwalk when the plow came down the street. Always one to take note of large trucks, he perked up from his task to watch. I knew what was coming -- more snow in the driveway to shovel out. They are impressive machines. We've been woken more than a few times by the blade slamming on the road. But they move a lot of snow around, for which we are thankful. It was just about to our driveway when the driver turned the blade away from the edge of the road and pushed the snow back into the road for a few feet. I waved and smiled as the truck rumbled by. Later, Dietrich took the swiffer and put it along the floor. He angled the "plow" and then quickly switched it, just as he has seen that morning. It is a process we watch every day -- he sees something happen, then makes it happen in a new setting with whatever he can. It has been going on for years, now, and we have grown used to it. Yet something about how he found the swiffer (it is kept in a closet) and the time he chose to play with it (during dinner after an afternoon of sledding -- shouldn't he be hungry?) made me appreciate it in a new way. This is his world, too. He is going to figure it out one way or another -- hungry or not.

Chocolate stars

Being Epiphany today, and being that we were too sick to do much baking in December, we made cut-out stars covered in chocolate buttercream frosting (left over from the Yule log). Never underestimate the power of chocolate to make a sugar cookie irresistable. It took all day to convince everyone to get on boots, jackets, mittens, something on the head and go to the kitchen store for a cutter and the grocery store for flour. Despite an hour long detour at the library, we had cookie dough chilling in the fridge by 4pm.

Knowing I had about another hour before the dinnertime meltdown/fight/freakout would begin, we opted for some quiet time on the couch with a Frog and Toad book, read aloud by the author on a cassette tape. I haven't used one for years. I handled it like a historic artifact when putting it into the one functioning tape player we have, a relic from my 10th birthday. But when the author's voice came on, Elliott was awed -- here is the guy who wrote this book, reading it to me! He quickly figured out the beep for the page turn and sat on the edge of the couch as he listened. When it was over he asked, "can we put it back on track one?" The rewind process was as fascinating as hearing the voice. Twice more he listened to the entire book. I tried to look through a remodeling book I picked up at the library, but Dietrich wasn't about to let Arnold Lobel do all the work -- he crawled into my lap, replacing Basements with his copy of Frog and Toad All Year.

Lobel reads deliberately. He reads as if each word has been worked over, chosen carefully among the many possibilities. He reads as if this is the only thing that matters in the world. He is reading to anyone who happens upon the cassette tape on the bottom shelf of the library, but when a child hears him, he feels as though the book was written just for him. Granted, this is his life's work. But isn't reading to my kids a great deal of my life's work? It isn't just that I read too fast, I read to easily. I read with one thought somewhere on the page, another on the kid in my lap or the other one beside me, another thought on whether I should put on warmer socks or turn up the thermostat. How might I read as though this story, this child or children, this moment, were the only one that mattered in the world?

The dough turned out a bit uneven, but easy to cut and transfer to the baking sheet. There was a breakdown in emotional equilibrium shortly thereafter over why we couldn't read two more stories before dinner (ahem, you are throwing a fit because you are hungry!). Some doors were slammed and feelings hurt. But we eventually sat, sang grace, and ate something resembling a dinner. When the stars were ready -- dripping with warmed buttercream frosting -- there was silent eating, the surest sign of pleasure.

Calendar

I went in to the shop on our quaint Monroe Street looking for a calendar. I came home with an egg slicer. It is bargain calendar season, but I found nothing I could bear to have hanging in the kitchen by the stove. Even though I try to keep a healthy distance from time-watching (I rarely am on time, and even less often wear a watch) I glance at the calendar while eating breakfast from the nook, while watching noodles boil, and while at the computer (also in the kitchen). There are penciled-in activities, birthdays, get-aways, and Ryan's hospital-ward schedule.

For about a decade, my calendars have come from a little known art group in Utah called, "Art at a Distance". The name is also a direction: looking at the water color paintings from across the room gives them their distinction. The group is made up of all women, all of whom have some professional relationship with the criminal justice system. They began painting to relieve the obvious tension that goes with such careers. From month to month, year to year, my calendar glances showed me snow-topped mountains where one woman rode her horses, rusty peaks and arches in desert sunlight where another (my aunt Joan) hiked, various Boston Red Sox players at Fenway (long before their victory in 2004), and the yearly pair of shoes, usually heels, propped up against each other as if kicked off after a long day. One woman splashed colors seemingly at random on the canvas, but on second look there was a kind of pattern that drew my attention each time I looked to see how many days until the end of a semester. Even the red barn with a low stone wall that served as the backdrop for our wedding photos made the calendar in 2003.

But this year the calendar never arrived. No doubt these women are busy with their careers (or retirement), caring for family young and old, travel and everything else, and missing a year a forgivable event. It would even seem expected. But I learned that busy-ness wasn't the only reason. Last fall, a friend of the group, an assistant federal public defender, had her life mercilessly taken from her when she was murdered in her own home. She dedicated her life's work to making sure people had representation so that justice might be served. For 18 years she worked with those who had no representation so that their story might be heard in a place where everyone is supposed to be equal. There must be a gaping hole in the lives of those who knew her -- from her dear family and daughter to her co-workers and friends and to those she defended in court. Such injustice is beyond understanding; to even think about it digs into the brokenness of our human condition. Yet this woman lived in a way that refused to allow brokenness to have the last word. And no doubt those who grieve right now will one day live out their lives the same way.

One picture from last year I found kind of eerie the time, but grew more fond of it as the month wore on. It was a woman's feet in a bath from the perspective of the bather. I guess I thought of the scary movies I'd seen as a teenager or the horrific scene I read in The Kite Runner where water in a tub speaks of danger. But the colors were light and airy, even warm, and the toes, from a distance, relaxed. The scene teeters on the edge between floating and sinking, but after enough glances, it became the lightness, the letting go, that stood out. Painting takes some of that letting go.

I will miss the calendar this year. I even thought of photocopying other years to make my own. But something about each painting, each month, needs to be kept together. We'll find something to keep track of our storytimes and swimming lessons. It won't be the dogs or cats or Mom's-magnetic-organizer-extraordinaire that are still left on the shelf, but neither will it be the colors gathered by this small group of women who gave of themselves so that justice might be served.

Mapping and breathing

Dietrich came up with a solution to his troubles at getting dressed for the day and putting on his pajamas at night. "I am going to make a map of my clothes and show which body pieces go in which hole! I will use arrows." He has not yet made his map, but he does seem to be getting into his clothes with a little less encouragement.

Last Tuesday, after a red-faced fit stopped only by the potential of toys being returned to Target, we talked to his swim instructor about not holding his breath while he swims. Minutes into his lesson, he learned how to exhale when swimming and came up beaming (not beet red and exhausted). And he asked on Saturday, "Is Tuesday tomorrow yet?"

How right he is: sometimes you just need to make a map and always remember to exhale, even under water. And how hard it is, at least for me, to do those things. Granted, map making for adults usually involves facing possibilities and making choices about which possibilities will remain, and which ones will be shed. It means letting go in order to go forward, and rerouting if those choices do not work out.

Breathing is even harder when I am so busy being captivated by my thought to thought when I could be listening to a tale of Elliott's imaginary friends or playing in the cupboard-turned-ambulance with Dietrich. Sometimes my deepest exhale happens when the whining or fighting or incessant dawdling (how many interesting bits can there be en route to the door?) tips me over the threshold. And the result is usually a fine exhale -- but a loud one.

Part of writing this blog is to exhale in a way that I cannot do during the day when putting on boots, chasing down a must-have-right-now something or other, or searching the fridge for the next meal. I'm looking for pieces of the day that stand out to me and letting them settle on (or shake up!) the page. Kathleen Norris calls them "Quotidian Mysteries" as they are the things we do every day, just to keep alive and well. Her book Laundry, Liturgy, and Women's Work helped me see into the proverbial sink full of dishes (and right now, ours is teeming with dishes) a task nothing short of holy. Another inspiration is the blog, One Moms' Year of Gratitude by a friend who found something each day for which she was thankful. Every visit helped me look in a new direction, namely, away from my tired thoughts and towards God.

Mapping, breathing, and writing each day. I'm off for the year ahead. I still wish the dish fairy would stop by once in a while.

Sky splashing pink and orange around our shadows casting ahead of our ski tips as we crest a hill on our final loop. Steam rises off of our backs; my brother is growing an icicle from his ski mask. Our pace laughs at my outing last week. We slowed to watch a hawk with a puffed white belly perch itself on a limb. Skritching the snow with our poles we race down the last modest hill.

It is as if no years have passed since we found our rhythm in the tracks traced in the woods; at first trailing behind our grandfather with our grandmother in the rear, parents scattered between and later racing far ahead of them. After the Christmas wrapping paper was discarded and the lefse platter empty, it was the skiing that stayed with us. Some years I grumbled to myself that downhill skiing was more exciting and why couldn't we do that? Other years I complained that my clothes were not right, I was cold, tired, not wanting to go out again. And yet I did -- partly because my grandfather was nearly as stubborn as I was, and partly because I didn't want to miss out on anything (what if this one time there was hot chocolate and a fire in the shelter?). But usually there was not, and my hands and feet were cold, but I had been down another hill and made another loop, or two.

Today when the whines of "I don't want to go skiing!" and the wimpers of "I want to stay home and write stories!" echoed throughout the house, my brother and I needed no encouragement to get them going. We recognized the grumbling (but graciously Rob said nothing) and made it out the door. Rob taught them to "shuffle, shuffle, glide" and to skateboard on one ski. When I finished my solo loop, we traded roles and worked on going up hill sideways with the boys (or "bananas gorilla as Rob calls it). Dietrich came up with his own skill: making his own tracks in the powder (or "groomer" as he calls it). By the time we were sipping hot cocoa (Elliott in the car, Dietrich in a snowbank) everyone was smiles. And just 10 minutes after bedtime prayers, all is quiet in their room

Bark, bark, zen, zen

Hushed dawn of a below zero morning, wondering how long Ryan had already been at work, peeking at the edges of the blackout shades -- is that light or just snow reflection? Then -- knock, knock, "MOMMY!" and the day is off. The grizzly cub joins me and his penguin brother to share the first minutes of the day. How is it that their skin seems as young as the day they were born first thing in the morning? Soon, my parents dog is barking us awake, demanding that we visit this coldest day so far in the new year while Elliott has woken up his uncle in the artic basement guestspace by way of the clock's zen melody. Dietrich is pushing coffee on the adults so that those last few promises of gifts -- even two boxes, later proven big enough for a child to eat breakfast in -- can finally be opened. Ryan and I will have to wait to open ours, when he returns, most likely after the dusk wisks past and another moonlit night rests on us.

The decade our boys will remember

Though just last night Dietrich asked, amidst giggles, for the shadow puppet story Uncle Rob told two years ago about a T-rex and a pizza store, my guess is that they will look at the teens as the decade in which they "grew up". I have plenty of memories of the '70's: going to the zoo, fishing in lakes in the Chequamegon Forest, and bouncing in golf carts at night while my parents watered the course. But it was the '80's that sang out the ridiculous lyrics forever imprinted in my mind and produced the fashions I clung to during the growing pains of teenagerhood. So I imagine that the boys will have their glory stories of Chicago and a nod to the steamy skies of their birthland, North Carolina, but it is likely this little spot in a mid-sized city during the new decade that they will claim as theirs. So let it begin, with Frog and Toad stories, a few wrapped gifts still under the tree from Uncle story-teller, and the hushed stillness of a a deep white earth, a few degrees above zero.