My hands, my mind are slow, but the week moves fast. I will be posting the link to my next writing lesson at BlogHer tonight - and it's funny (!!), if my computer will cooperate. This machine groans from time to time, doesn't do the simple things I ask of her. Please send Oms, Happy Computer Vibes, Extra Electrons, and your best wishes to the crazy beast.
So, while I sort out the technicalia, please enjoy a couple photos from my quadrant of the galaxy:
Yeah. I'm home.
12 and 10 ponder the meaning of New Mexican existence.
I just posted my first Official Writing Lesson at BlogHer. Please read "Marty Cherryseed and the Good Bad Idea."
The past few weeks I wrote more than I ever thought possible, wrote, rewrote, shoved words in a paper bag, completed an introduction to my book of short stories, wrote this, wrote that. The words are furious with me, as if I've kept them stuffed in a hope chest much too long.
My daughter is visiting for the week, and we will make the trek to Carlsbad Caverns and Roswell. I have some great stories to tell about my past few weeks - some surprises, oh yes, with photographs even - and when I'm finished with the BlogHer conference next week, I shall do my best to tell one or two of the juciest.
I attend a teacher's retreat last week as part of my fall employment work-up. Change is good, but change is strange, and starting the day without checking my old Avon account, my lotion stock, my brochure stash is odd, unfamiliar. I am considering a stint in college beginning this fall, and have begun the paperwork necessary to trade life experience for credit, to determine where I must start, and what it would take to end with a teaching certificate in hand. I'm not sure about this step, whether it fits my personality, the needs of my family.
I'll be writing this summer, but most of my output won't be for the 'net. I have a new book to write, an old book to sell, boys to chase through the backyard sprinkler. I'll still be around, and will be posting stuff here and there, but will carry no regular schedule. I hope to entertain with stories of summer romance, my trip to BlogHer, my ongoing school decisions as time permits.
If you've emailed me, hang in there! I will get back to you!
The boys and I have started an eBay business selling old Wild West items - from horseshoes to cowboy hats to western shirts to spurs to Hopi Kachinas to.... you get the picture. I'll be adding in a feed to my sidebar so you can check out our auctions!
The homemade (well, duh!) fort built of felled cedar trees. A great place for a dog, a pot-bellied pig, and two boys.
I added a cable walk to my creation. All of the neighbor kids consider this the fun yard!
My youngest son, 9, turns 10 in a few days. He woke me an hour ago.
"I can't sleep."
He tossed his art supplies on the bed and crawled in after them. Graphite pencils, rubber eraser, ruler, a pad of heavy paper. I flicked the lamp switch, let the soft light compete with the moon's full glow. He lay on his stomach, eyes close to paper, and pressed the ruler against the page. One thin line, then another, parallel. A comics panel. I sat, fluffed pillows behind my back and reached for my laptop.
"Who are you writing about today?"
9 looked at his empty story, as if my answer might provide inspiration. I flipped the computer top back and pressed the button that gives it life.
"Oh, I don't know. I have too many people to write about. I'll probably write about you."
The laptop gurgled, and I felt its warm footprint in my lap as it hustled awake. 9 stared at me, at my face in profile. His hair stuck out around his ears, and I thought about winter, how hair never hibernates the way our hearts do.
"Mom? Who writes about you?"
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. I almost told him about readers who liked my stories and said so on their blogs, about friends who mention me in passing, in short prayer. But that's not what he meant. He wanted to know who described my scowl on dry afternoons, who wondered why I love grapefruit more than any other citrus, who transferred my uneven skin tone to page, my penchant for singing off-key to every Lyle Lovett song, the way my hair snarls overnight, all my spoken, secret dreams.
Nobody does these things. I don't think anyone notices me these days, not enough to write when I'm not looking. That answer wasn't right, either, so I kept mouth clamped tight. 9 shifted his eyes to his paper. He began sketching a penguin, an action penguin with a knit ski cap, one wing raised in excitement.
"Hey. We both tell stories, right? I write them. You draw them."
9 nodded. He added old-fashioned skis, a naked tree, a snow angel in the shape of a fat bird.
"It's our job to write about people. Some of the people I write about have no one to tell their story. But I have someone. Me! And you! We can write about people who need us, and we can write about each other."
He added another penguin to the page, a tall female with eyes almond and shrewd. My eyes. I smiled though my heart wanted to break.
"Mom, sometimes all we want is someone to write for us."
So here I sit, telling another story about 9 as he presses me into the page, gives me wings of charcoal, wings that sweep across three panels, lift me into heaven.
You may have noticed the wee little countdown calendar I had posted on the left sidebar. I couldn't WAIT for today! My boys enjoyed nearly a full month of winter break. Today, though, brought projectile vomiting to the household, and 9 and myself are both laid up with serious cases of vertigo. Apparently it's going 'round town.
My youngest son, 9, has a secret. He loves Little House on the Prairie - the books, the imagined pioneer village his mind builds when his fingers run under the words. He loves the old TV series, too, loves to watch Melissa Gilbert play Half-Pint, watch her run in a starched pinafore through oxen-dotted grass, long braids flipping behind her.
When the snows hit hard last night, 9 slipped into his top bunk and pulled the faded blue comforter tight around his neck. His brother wasn't home, was at a sleep over three miles away playing X-Box and Game Cube and all rich electronic wonders we don't honor in our stucco house. 9 hugged me through his blanket when I kissed him goodnight. The snow hit his window but didn't make a sound.
"Mom! Please, please, please! Can we make snow candy like Laura?"
I remembered reading about the hot syrup tossed over packed snow when I was a child. I never tried it, never stirred sugar over a burner until it formed soft gooey balls.
"Yeah, 9. Let's make snow candy tomorrow!"
And yeah, we made that snow candy, played modern pioneer - me in my ratty jeans, 9 in a turtleneck handed down from his oldest brother to 11 to him:
9 packs fresh snow in my crepe pan:
I boiled pure maple syrup until it began to pull away from the sides of the pan. We poured funny shapes into the snow:
The boiled syrup made lovely translucent pieces of chewy candy:
In a bowl, the stuff looks a little like aspic:
All in all, a wonderful snowy Saturday treat!
