Friday, December 11, 2009

untitled

A cruel wind fills a sail
that blows you closer to me
and I can see you from the shore
where I stand.
Like a child who believes that
she can hold the small boat
on the horizon
in the palm of her hand,
I lift my arm and
cup your hull, squinting in
the sunlight reflecting off
the water.

It's like a hazy dream scape,
yet I swear I can smell the
brine of the salt water that's
slipping through my fingers,
no matter how tightly
I grip to try and contain
a sea I can't control anyway.

Barnacles embrace the bow of
your craft, rough against my
skin. In my chest leaps a flame of
jealousy because they
hold tight to you
and you let them.

But me?
Me you keep at an arm's
length so long that I can't
even brush the whorls of
my fingertips against your cheekbones.

And fear traces each corner of my heart
because at any moment
the wind will come again
fill your sail once more
and you'll disappear.
Gone for good, my love.

And the worst part is,
I might be the wind
that blows you away.

Posted by Melissa at 1:11 PM 0 Comments

Monday, December 07, 2009

holidayz

Hey, is this thing on?

One of the funniest lyrics I've heard in a song is by Jonatha Brooke ... "once a year the holidays come swinging at your head."

This time of year is one of my favorites, but as I've gotten older I realize how that lyric can be very true and if we're not careful the months between October and January can be one big blur of parties, gift buying, piles of wrapping paper, cranky kids and parents who are pushed to their limits with the pressure of doing/being everything and everywhere. So, we try our best to keep it simple and living in the woods can be a beneficial aid in reminding me of what's really important ... and if I feel any overwhelm I can walk out the back door, stand on the porch, breathe in the crisp air and listen to the softness of the wind in the evergreens, or the quiet insulation that a layer of snow can provide.

The last couple of weeks of November were filled with family, food, and a lot of laughter. We hosted the meal this year in a new way -- Eli cooked his gourmet feast here at our house and at the last minute we loaded up my van, Emmylou, and drove upstream about thirty seconds to my inlaws' house. We decided to do it this way because Eli's folks have a bigger house and TV reception for anyone wanting to watch football, and it worked out very nicely. And the food ...

It has been such fun to watch Eli's cooking skills (and when I say "cooking" it feels like a very pedestrian description for what he creates) grow and change as we've shared life together. When we first met his mom told me about a dinner he had prepared once, which included homemade pasta. I was in awe, because, personally, I'd rather do anything than cook and grew up in a family of chefs and cooks who gladly did that work for me while I climbed trees, played in the woods, read books and generally lived in a different place in my head. At first I felt guilty that Eli was always in the kitchen on weekends, but as time went by I realized how much he really loves everything about cooking ... reading the recipes, gathering the ingredients, studying produce, trying new things and experiencing the outcome of his labors.


our handsome chef!


His turkey was gorgeous and tasted delicious. The girls and I picked it up at a local farm where the birds are free-range and organic (nothing like it compared to the frozen blocks you get at the grocery store). I joked with them that we had to catch the bird first, so they'd better wear their play clothes. This was met with a rounding chorus of, "MOM THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!"

In my position as food runner, I didn't take any photos, but my mother-in-law did ...



Eli carving the bird at my inlaws' house ...




The four of us and LOOK, me in a SKIRT caught on film!!




A nuthatch hit one of the windows and stunned itself, so I went out
and held it until it was ready to fly again (no nuthatch dinner for the cats, thank you very much)



.... feeling much better.


Eli definitely has a method to his madness and we giggled later over his panic when his mis en place (a French term for the placement of all the various tidbits a chef needs at his/her fingertips in a very particular and individualized map on the counter -- it can make a chef beyond cranky if, as Anthony Bourdain puts it, someone "fucks with your 'meez'") got rearranged by his well-meaning mom. And, where anyone else would have given up cooking anything for about a month after a meal like the one Eli put together, he was dreaming of roasting a Christmas goose two seconds after the last Thanksgiving dish was washed and put away. Crazy-man, I tell you!

I love this time of year, but a lot goes with it for me and I know it's the same for many people out there. I've been thinking of writing a young adult book about a main character with food issues, because I think if I had read something about eating disorders when I was a teen it might have helped me sooner than the help I've gotten in the past five years. But I also know things happen when they do for a reason ... I might not have listened or connected with a book like the one I want to write when I was a teen. It took me many years to understand what was going on with me and food ... and, let me tell you, it can suck to have an eating disorder. Suck. From the outside it may look to others like a simple obsession with weight and gaining an idealized vision of perfection, but you have to understand that there is a lot more underneath all that and it is sometimes physically and emotionally painful. Eating or not eating can feel torturous to me and Eli is the only person (other than my kids) that I feel 100% comfortable eating in front of. I also understand that this part of me is a huge blessing because through the hard work I've done on it and on myself, I have reached a place where I have never been happier or more peaceful and balanced. The times when I struggle are few and far between now.

I say I have an eating disorder, despite the behavior being under control for the past five years, because for me it's a part of my every day. Some are able to fully recovered from their bulimia, anorexia and/or compulsive eating, but many others have to accept it as a part of how they're wired and in that acceptance find a whole new and beautiful way of life.

This is a time of food, and piles of it, in our culture and I can't help but think of all the women and men out there that are silently fighting a battle that they don't totally understand and think there is no cure for. I wish I could go out there and hold each one of them for a minute and tell them I understand ... and that there is hope and help out there. The support group I go to grows exponentially around the holidays as people with food issues reach the end of their supply of hope after the ridiculousness of food throughout the winter holidays.

The other night Eli and I went to a concert in Philly and I was reminded that I'm a lot closer to forty than I am to twenty! We stood for three hours on a slanted floor in a tiny venue and we joked about how our ears hurt and our backs were aching by hour two. I even considered (for about three seconds) leaving before the encore because my back was wailing so loudly. The musician we saw was Josh Ritter and I haven't seen a live performance like that one in a really long time. There was a room full of people and somehow he connected with every single one of them -- it felt more like a friend having some fun jamming with his band than a concert we paid to see. Josh bolted on the stage and greeted the crowd so fast that they didn't have time to bring the lights up until after he shouted, "Hey!" to all of us. Then he grinned and said, "This is gonna be fun!"

It wasn't just fun. It was amazing. I've listened to my CDs of his this week almost sadly, because there is nothing like seeing this guy and his band live.

There was one particular song that I really wanted to hear and wasn't sure if he'd play. But as soon as he played the first three notes of it I knew what it was and put my head on Eli's shoulder. This song means the world to me and reminds me of where I've come from and the importance of sitting in feelings, getting through them and knowing I'm going to be just fine (all these things are at the root of all eating disorders). It's a fight sometimes and if I think of it as anything less, it is much more likely that I'll revert to old behaviors, scary stuff that I cannot devalue or I will miss the potential hazards and dangers of them. I believe in God and this song helps me remember all the amazing, good, and beautiful things as well as the dangers ... it might be a war for me sometimes, but something much bigger than that war is on my side and I stand up straight in my own shoes now, completely happy with who I am.

During the song I had a clear view of the stage and I felt like I was the only one in the room.

The song is like a conversation with the Paul of the Pauline letters in the New Testament and the lyrics that hit me straight in the chest were so loud and clear that night.

"Paul said to Peter you gotta rock yourself a little harder ... pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire ... I got a girl in the war, Paul, the only thing I know to do is to turn up the music and pray that she makes it through."

Posted by Melissa at 4:58 AM 4 Comments

Thursday, November 19, 2009

thurs. thirteen

1. This morning Charlotte woke me up to ask me if the yard stick was in inches or centimeters. I was half-asleep, but managed to reply, muffled by my pillow, "Inches." Then I felt a slight panic as it registered that she was up to something ... "Why?" She held up her sword for me to see, "Because I want a scabbard for my sword for Christmas and wanted to know if it was 32 inches or centimeters."

2. She also wants a bow and quiver. No arrows because she said she is content to shoot sticks.

3. I felt conflicted the other day about her obsession with swords, rapiers, catapults, long bows, daggers, scabbards, and armor. I talked to a friend about it, telling her that we don't let the kids play with guns or watch violent movies ... "But I let her save her allowance for a sword. Is that twisted?" My friend, who is an excellent mom and whose opinion I respect greatly said, "Well, you really have to get up close to someone to use a sword. You look them in the eye." I saw her point. And I, too, loved medieval things as a kid and even had a bow and arrow as a young teen. I also love target shooting and was obsessed with Annie Oakley as a kid. We had rifle class in high school and the first time I shot the gym teacher tried to recruit me for the sharp-shooting team. So I both understand where she's coming from, while remaining staunch in my belief in peaceful means of solving conflict. It gets sticky sometimes, though ...

4. I asked Iris what she wanted for Christmas and she lit up, declaring, "I want the Barbie you can tattoo!" I cracked up. This is probably my fault, given I have two tattoos and have been planning a third and last one.

5. I asked Iris if there was anything else she wanted and she thought, looked up at me and said, "You. I want you for Christmas." I melted. This little one and I have had a rocky and emotional road together and the closeness and bond we've shared in the past year has been worth its weight in gold to me. And what makes me very relieved is that Iris doesn't remember how conflicted she was about me at first. She took a lot of her confusion and pain out on me when she was tiny, which I understood and even expected in some ways (I read a lot about this sort of thing in the adoption books I read before we went to China), but as much as I understood in intellectually, it hurt like hell. I took the advice of the books I read and acted as if all was well ... and only admitted my hurt to Eli and my parents out of earshot of Iris. Slowly, she has worked through it and each hug and word of love from her means everything to me.

6. This week, Charlotte hit the stage with the rest of her class for a fantastic production of Romeo and Juliet. The kids totally nailed the performance and blew everyone away! The lines were a little more kid-friendly than the actual play, but all aspects of the tragedy were included and they used a super rhyme scheme. My favorite parts were when Romeo (six inches shorter than his Juliet) sang out in his high 6 year-old voice, "What light from yonder window breaks?" And when Juliet hit the stage in her death scene, remembering to grab her bouquet on the way down for dramatic effect, and her hoop skirt shot up and revealed her jeans and sneakers.





7. Iris loves any excuse to get dressed up and carefully picked her dress (which Charlotte wore as a two year old!), sweater and hair accessories. She had a lot of fun waving to her classmates who came to the show to see their older siblings perform.


8. The kids have been a bit fiesty lately, and I'm trying not to panic when I think of the 9 days they have off for Thanksgiving ... I think we'll head to a local museum that has an exhibit up of the Muppets and Jim Henson's storyboards and we'll have a lot of fun over Thanksgiving, too. I'm sure it will all fly by.

9. This one is for Baino who loves my wonky thumbs!


10. Knitting has been going really well lately and I'm noticing how much easier it is to handle things that used to make me panic. Like the other day I was knitting a sock and couldn't figure out how I had ended up with one less stitch than I needed. I found that I had dropped a stitch and it had unwound through four rows. I didn't panic or even break a sweat -- something that happens when knitters realize they screwed up and now have to figure out what happened and how to fix it without making it worse (you can tell a knitter has screwed up if they suddenly look very pink, start taking deep, slow breaths and shedding layers of clothing -- I'm not kidding). I fixed the problem within a few seconds and you can't even tell where it happened. This is huge for me! As is memorizing the rows of a lace sock and being able to carry it around without the physical pattern on paper.

11. This little dude showed up on one of the stumps Eli put at the foot of the driveway for the girls and me to sit on while waiting for the bus. The funny thing is that it grows visibly on a daily basis!



12. Here is the lovely and gastronomically amazing dinner Eli made for our anniversary. When we eloped we were 23 and were just setting out in the world together. We had no furniture other than a mattress on the floor, a bureau and a kitchen table. We didn't have a TV and our sofa was a foam thing on the floor with pillows. So our wedding meal was as expensive as we could afford at the time -- brie, caviar, shrimp and champagne. Bad shrimp, unfortunately, and we were both sick by the time we went to bed. Then, since we eloped on a Sunday, we got up and went to work the next day; I was up at 4:30 to go dog sledding and Eli went off to his office as web master. Behold the beauty of water crackers stacked with brie, cucumber, strawberries and caviar; shrimp with wasabi dipping sauce; and artichokes with garlic butter. I love this man!



13. I've been writing a lot and I realize clenching my teeth at the same time = bad headache by afternoon. I'm trying to be aware of this and breathe deeply instead ... we'll see. I'm not exactly "present" when I'm writing!

Happy Thursday, y'all!

Posted by Melissa at 5:09 AM 6 Comments

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

You are my very best friend and my greatest love ...

13 years ago today, that line began the vows I wrote for Eli ... we were standing in a garden in the middle of suburbia, the traffic and noise momentarily dimmed and the whole world seemed quiet. It was just us, my husky, and a minister who was teary-eyed at the end of our little ceremony. Six months later we had a wedding with family and friends, a gown, flowers and a gorgeous cake, but that little ceremony in that garden is forever etched in my memory and heart as one of my favorites ... it sits tucked safely beside the moment I touched Charlotte's cheek for the first time, and when I looked through the bus window to finally see Iris for the first time.

This is my left hand ... do you notice something about my ring finger? The callous beneath it? The pale indentation that is the exact width of my wedding band?


Those are the telltale signs of a partnership that has given me so many gifts it would take me a long time to list them all. It would start with how after 14 years together, 13 married, we still laugh together, we still sit close beside each other, Eli still puts his arm around me, reaches for my hand, plays with my hair. Though he is so quiet, I can look at him and read his mood and reactions to things unlike anyone else, and he holds eye contact with me for long stretches, listens intently. After 14 years together we still snuggle up at night, say we love each other before we go to sleep, when we get up, when we hang up the phone. We are friends beneath it all, would prefer to be together than apart, and the blessing the minister who married us still rings true ... our home is a sanctuary where we weather the challenges and rejoice in the everyday gems.

This is my wedding band ...



it was my mother's before me and her grandmother's before her ... if you look closely you can see the inscription for my parents' marriage and my great-grandparents' above it. If you could turn the ring, you would see the inscription for my marriage to Eli. The ring itself is 107 years old and I dreamed of wearing it when I was a little girl. I'd slip it on my finger when it was still much to big and I swiped it from my mother's jewelry box after Eli and I eloped, knowing that Mom had promised it to me and that as soon as she heard we'd gotten married she'd want to head right to the jewelry store to have it sized and engraved (which she did).

After we eloped we went to the movies and saw Baz Lurman's version of Romeo and Juliet ... tonight we'll be going to the girls' school and will watch Charlotte onstage in that very same play, with Iris sitting with us in the audience.

How blessed am I?

I love you, buddy ....

Posted by Melissa at 4:49 AM 5 Comments

Friday, November 13, 2009

Facebook

First I must ask that everyone stand and give a rousing ovation to my dear, Milady, who not only swept while this blog collected a few cobwebs, but she made tea and buttered scones! Thank you, love! You always make me smile! (also, you should all go and check out the comments she left on my last post ... and can I tell you how excited I am that she will be here ... HERE!!! ... in January??)

I believe part of my problem with posting regularly is a little thing out on the internet you might have heard of before. Facebook. See, even the Dark Side has gotten sucked into this social network that has a tendency to rip away your ability to focus on anything other than checking status updates and searching for old friends.


I was very hesitant to join Facebook, despite the repeated urging of many friends who had signed up and gotten lost in the black hole of online chatting and reconnecting. Eventually, I signed up after a writer's retreat, a little skeptical but willing to give it a shot. As a part of the initial process, you can add things to your profile like your alma maters, which I did and then promptly had a bit of a panic attack when I saw photos of people whom I went to college with pop up paired with excited little urgings from the Facebook program telling me to "friend" these people. I should say that this was a random choosing of people from my college and it just happened to be a few individuals I would rather not ever see again. Nor do I want them to know anything about me. Not that they'd remember me, but they come from a time frame that was pretty painful for a couple of years. So I promptly deleted my profile and ran into the hills to hide again.

A couple of months passed and I sneaked back over to the laptop and tentatively waded back into the Facebook waters. I added my high school and my college and made sure I protected everything with all the privacy armor Facebook provides. And ... low and behold ... I was suddenly subject to a most wonderful tidal wave of old friends and present friends, who saw I had joined and immediately pulled me into a warm and loving circle. I blinked and hours had passed because I was happily searching for people, friending them, uploading photos of my family and dogs to share, laughing over posts, and joining in volleys that included several friends at the same time. I have had a blast coming up with status updates of my own, and for those who aren't on FB a "status update" is a line or two about what's going on with you at any given moment. Mine are usually about writing, Eli and his kilt, song lyrics that hit me, or hysterical things the kids say. And I realize that all these little blurbs that I post on my Facebook page are usually tidbits I would gather throughout the week and then post here at the Forge in one big post.

So I'm a little torn and trying to figure out a good balance of Facebooking and blogging ... bear with me! :)

Something very interesting has happened as a result of joining Facebook, too. The other day I sat back and realized that this is the first place where all my friends have been in one place at the same time, no matter what their background, their beliefs or their history with me. At first I found myself being unsure about posting certain things, my mind listing the people who I had friended and wondering what their reactions would be. I have a very wide range of friends and they come from all different phases of my life ... and now they're all reading my status updates together. Weird.

I'm one that doesn't like to rock the boat and for most of my life I gauged what I said and did by who was in the room at the time. I want people to like me, which, unfortunately, has made me shift my behavior into what I think someone expects of me. This can be very hard to keep up with and has buried my real self for many years. I have a very strong personality and am half in the real world half in a world of daydreaming/fantasy/storytelling all. the. time. So not all of me has been buried, because it just comes bubbling out of me, but I haven't always felt I could be 100% myself 100% of the time.

I have always had a big smile. I have always laughed a lot. I have always had a bit of a playful, emotional, intense way of being. And that has not always gone over well with others. When I was in elementary school I found out a bunch of kids from another school thought I was on drugs because of my bright and sprightly self (this was like third grade ... for heaven's sake, what did they think? That I was snorting cocaine in between games of four-square and math class?). In high school, I had a great group of friends who loved me for who I was and they helped me believe in me, different that I was. In college, though ... well, the shit kind of hit the fan for a couple of years.

I found the same sort of thing as I had in elementary school (which I realize now says something about the people who thought these things about me). I was judged by some because of how I acted (once again, many thought I was on something and one particular person was adamant and very sure of his conviction that I was high ... I still wish I had dumped my dinner in his lap), how I dressed, who I hung out with. It was incredibly hurtful for me, one who has pretty thin skin and bruises easily. Slowly, things turned around for me, but college always had a bit of a painful tinge to it.

Almost twenty years later ... here I am on Facebook and all those old feelings came back.

But.

In the connections I've reforged with friends and posting silly little status updates I'm letting go of what I think others expect and I'm writing honestly. And with each post, I've found that I'm more and more secure in who I am. It has given me a totally new outlook on college and I can look back on it and remind myself I was only 18 years old and figuring out my world in a lot of ways on my own. I thought I had gotten to a pretty good place in all that in the past couple of years, but Facebook, in all its goofiness, has given me a huge gift. Other people are allowed to think whatever they'd like about me ... and my friends, they know me a lot better than I ever imagined. And I'm so grateful. So, thanks internet!

But most of all ... thank you to my friends ... and thank you to me.



Posted by Melissa at 5:11 AM 4 Comments

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tidbits for Tuesday

I'm not sure how many tidbits I have to share today ... but I thought I'd get a post out there before the cobwebs settle in again. Although, cobwebs would be apropos for this week, given the ghoulish holiday that approacheth. One of my favorite holidays, I should add!

I'll start with this. I emerged from a flu fog that swept over our house last week and realized that holy shit, it's almost Halloween! And I haven't carved one pumpkin or made sure all costume bits and bobs are taken care of. I think the girls are set ... I just need to sit down and gather everything together to make sure it's all in once place before Friday, when they have a Halloween party at school. What pleases me especially about this is that it's a Halloween party and has not been distorted and bent into some sort of vanilla version of things because of religious concerns. Last year they had a "fall festival" and learned about autumn. Groan. I'm sorry, but in any faith there is dark and light and you can't truly appreciate grace and love without a bit of fear and screaming. Heh heh. Heaven ain't heaven without hell to consider, right? Plus, I don't think dressing up as the devil or enjoying the deliciousness of a scary story about the Other Side is going to draw one into a life of heathendome. Is that a word? Heathenness? Anyway. If you're into devil worship and sacrificing stray cats, it's not because your parents dressed you up to go trick-or-treating, you have a screw or two loose and need some help. Or you're a brilliant madman like Poe. Imagine a world without Poe? I think not!

My favorite scary story? The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Scared the living bajeebers out of me as a kid, in a delicious, tell-me-the-story-again kind of way. The thud of haunted hooves reverberating on a dark dirt road in the far flung country where no one can hear you scream ... a tall shadowy figure on horseback, black cape flying, a glowing jack-o-lantern held high, a missing head? Shiver. Remember, I grew up in Vermont on a back road where it was very easy to imagine such characters as the bent and sniveling Ichabod Crane and the terrifying Headless Horseman.

One of my favorite lines in literature ever?

"Something wicked this way comes ..."

I love that so much it gives me the shivers every time I read it. Just like the first line in Moby Dick, "Call me Ishmael." (shiver) You just know you're in for a good tale with those three words and I can't open the book and read that line without running the risk of reading the whole darn thing over again.

Another bit. Last night my husband, who has a very active and intellectual dream world, though he rarely remembers it, said rather loudly in the middle of the night, "Two of them can make a compound!"

Right-o, my love! Now put down that bunson burner, you're ASLEEP.

A bunch of little bits. Charlotte asked to be Loretta Lynn for Halloween after I bought Vanleer Rose, the album Loretta did with Jack White. You should hear her sing the lyrics to these songs about the death penalty and the trash that burns down your family tree in a very convincing Kentucky twang. Kind of hard to drive when that is coming from the back seat of the van! She also has a crush on Jack White. And a boy named Shane on her bus. And her gym teacher Louis. Iris has decided to be Princess Jasmin for Halloween. I think I've mentioned here how calmly (?) I looked all over the internet for a costume that was appropriate for her at five years-old. Would you like to see the name of the one I did find?

Harem girl. HAREM GIRL. I would like to buy everyone at Costumecraze.com a dictionary. And then I'll hit them over the head with it.

Another bit. Eli made an emergency trip to the grocery store on his way home from work yesterday to get me some coffee. I had had to go with a lesser brand in the past week, which didn't really matter that much because I couldn't taste anything and the caffeine had about as much affect as giving a breath mint to a carnivore. But, now that I'm bouncing back, I realized how nasty this coffee is and I asked sweetly if Eli could stop somewhere and get my favorite coffee ... One Village's Sumatra. Whew ... what a difference! Thanks, buddy!

I can't think of anything else to report at this point ... I hope this finds everyone doing well and keeping healthy out there!

Posted by Melissa at 5:48 AM 12 Comments

Friday, October 23, 2009

just when I thought both kids were going back to school ...

I just sent this to Eli at work:

Report from Sick Bay, Star Date 493.8

The morning started out with a viewing of the classic Disney movie: Snow White. The children were subdued with fits of both laughter and coughing, their pallor paler than usual, although signs of health appear to be present.

Each child then tested her will with the computer games on the website PBS kids, while their mother baked killer cookies in the kitchen. Cookies came out to perfection, were cooled and packed, an extra cookie given to each child after sufficient nutritious fortification had been consumed.

Bickering has been at a minimum, but explosive when exhibited. Whining from youngest offspring has been prevalent, mother has been ignoring this issue with varied levels of success. Older child has been spending limitless time making up stories for herself, including this line, "That is more treacherous than speaking words of treachery."

Once a period of rest has been obtained, the three female humanoid members of the family will go to the post office to send birthday cookies to maternal grandfather, and mother will go to the bookstore to pick up new science fiction novel, while both female offspring remain in the car during entire course of errand running.

It is evident that the mother misses her mate, who so valiantly fought flu viruses and cranky children, while balancing work at the homestead and she is hoping the male member of the family can get some rest and time to rejuvenate his life forces over the weekend.

It is also apparent that the three females love this male humanoid very much.

Posted by Melissa at 11:29 AM 6 Comments